Dragonball Z Alternate Path: Gohan Meets Team 7
by DbzpreteenGohanfan87
Summary: 1st part in a Two-Part crossover series. Warning! Takes place the universe of my DBZ AP storylines. I HIGHLY recommend that you READ those stories before attempting this. Anyway... Takes place a few months after the World Tournament. Gohan is now the Crown Prince of Ox-Kingdom. And they hire ninjas to escort him to a diplomatic event. What will he do when he meets Team 7? Rated T
1. The Journey Begins

**Chapter :1**

**The Journey Begins**

_Disclaimer: I do not own either Dragonball Z or Naruto. Both of those properties are copyrights of Akira Toriyama, Toei and Masashi Kishimoto, etc respectively. These stories are purely for fan entertainement and is totally non-profit._

"(Yawns!) Kakashi-sensei, why do we have to go all the way to this stupid Ox Kingdom all the way outside the Ninja Nations just to babysit some stupid spoiled prince. I mean can't they just hire some bodyguards to do that? Why do us ninjas, especially a great ninja like me, have to get relegated down to bodyguard duty." Naruto complained as Team 7 made their way down the road in the forest.

"Because, Naruto, the Ox Kingdom is an important link between the Ninja Nations and the outside world. It's one of the few places where people can openly transition from our more traditional Ninja countries and the more technologically advanced outside world. Their crown prince is expected to make an important diplomatic overture to the Ninja Nations and they didn't think he would be safe under the protection of regular bodyguards in the Ninja world. They decided that they wouldn't settle for anything less than the best, so they decided to hire ninja in order to protect him from other ninja. Because of the recent Sand/Sound Invasion all our resources are stretched thin and all the other teams are away on mission so we were the best team available. Does that answer your question Naruto?" explained Kakashi as he looked down lazily from his book with his "good" eye. "Yeah, I guess." grudgingly said Naruto, having nothing more to add.

"Quit your complaining Naruto, we're almost there. Besides I thought you would be thrilled to be getting an A-ranked mission?" Sakura scolded Naruto. "Huh? This is an A-ranked mission?" asked Naruto. "As I already told you, our clients don't know how many or how strong the people who might be interested in stopping his journey are. They could be anywhere from regular bandits to S-rank missing-nins in strength. I hear our clients were so worried about the threat that they were willing to pay for an S-rank mission but since the danger level wasn't confirmed and the fact that the only teams available were genin teams the mission was downgraded to an A-rank with S-rank pay. Since we're the only genin team with an actual A-rank mission under our belts we were chosen." Kakashi once again explained.

"*groans* It still doesn't seem like much of a mission. But with any luck we'll run into some killer ninja and I can blow them all away with my super cool awesome jutsu!" Naruto boasted with his fists pumped and his trademark goofy grin. "Hn. Well if we ever run into some academy dropouts I'll be sure to send them all your way since you're of their level." Sasuke mocked with one of his rare smiles. Naruto just glared daggers at Sasuke but didn't reply since he felt the didn't even dignify a responce. 'It never ends with those two, does it?' Kakashi thought to himself while shaking his head.

Pretty soon they found themselves at the entrance of a large town with a beautiful white palace at the top of the hill which the town was built around. As they made their way through the streets, they could feel the eyes of the locals glancing at them suspiciously. While it unnerved Sakura a bit, Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke looked like they didn't mind it. Kakashi due to his experience, Naruto due to the fact that he got worse glances on a daily basis and Sasuke just plain didn't care.

Finally they made it to the palace where they were warmly received and taken to see the Ox King. They found themselves in a large chinese style room with an extremely large man wearing a hat with horns and sitting indian style on the floor.

"Welcome! I am the mighty Ox King! And you must be the ninja we hired to protect my precious grandson." spoke the man they now knew as the Ox King. The ninja were all on their knees in traditional respectful seating position in front of the Ox King. "That's correct, I am Kakashi Hatake the squad leader. This is Sasuke Uchiha..." said Kakashi, doing the introductions. "Your Majesty." said Sasuke with a short nod but spoken in his casually flat but respectful tone. "Sakura Haruno..." continued Kakashi. "It's an honor to meet you." greeted Sakura with a little bow of her own. "And Naruto Uzumaki." finished Kakashi as he came to the person last in line. "At your service!" Naruto proudly declared while placing right arm across his chest and smiling his foxy smile.

"They all seem to be a little young aren't they?" observed Ox King. "Don't be fooled by their age, I assure you that they are well qualified." assured Kakashi with one of his eye smiles. "You don't say? Well you'll have to forgive my skepticism, Although I've known my fair share of young people with incredible skills and abilities, but you can't help but be a little cautious about people as young as them handling these sort of matters." said Ox King as he looked at Squad 7 with delight in his eyes as he was reminded of some other young warriors that he knew.

"Are these the ones who are going to escort our precious Gohan?" asked a feminine voice from out of seemingly nowhere. Squad 7 turned to see a young black haired woman in a chinese style dress and holding a baby in her arms walk over from behind the Ox King and sit right next to him. "Why yes they are Chi-Chi. Forgive me everyone but this is my daughter Chi-Chi. Chi-Chi these are the ninja's that are going to escort Gohan on his journey over to the Ninja Nations." introduced the Ox King. The ninja bowed their heads in respect and greeting to the the Ox King's daughter and Chi-Chi slightly nodded her head in polite return as well. "Please, I beg for you to protect my precious Gohan!" pleaded Chi-Chi with watery eyes and a pleadingful look on her face.

"Uum...? Excuse me m'am... but is he the one we're supposed to protect?" asked a sweat-dropping Naruto as he pointed to the baby being held in Chi-Chi's arms. The other members of Squad 7 also sweat-dropped as they also dreaded that this just might be the case as far as they knew and also for Naruto stupidly opening his mouth at such a stupid subject.

"Who him? No, this is Goten, our second son. Our first son Gohan is much more older and should be very easy to work with. He should be out front at the gate waiting for you." said Chi-Chi as she pointed out forward to the direction of the front gates outside. Everyone in Squad 7 were somewhat relieved to hear this as they then sent a combined glare at Naruto and then bowed out respectfully as they then went off to find their charge.

A little later, as Squad 7 approached the giant front gates that were colored red that contrasted with the white stone construction of the palace, they saw that the door to the guard house on the left side of the gates was open and that there were two figures in the doorway hidden by shadows so they couldn't see them properly. "But daaaad... Why do I have to go along with these ninja bodyguards? Aren't I strong enough that I can take care of myself?" said the slightly whinny sounding voice of a yound boy. The other tall figure crouched down and reassuringly placed his hands on the smaller figures shoulders like a parent would.

"Yes, I know son, but the people that your meeting with wouldn't allow us to send you without a ninja escort so there's nothing we can do about it. You're just going to have to deal with them. Just remember to be nice and try to act normal for them. Now go out there and have fun." apparently said the father of the young boy as he then stood up proudly and disappeared into the shadows.

The shorter figure then walked out into the light of the outside and revealed himself. He was a fairly handsome young boy about the same age as the genin of Squad 7 with wild spiky black hair that was apparently cut in the back while wearing a white chinese shirt with mandarin black pants along chinese style slipper shoes, he also carried a regular grey backpack. "Hello, my names Gohan. I guess you guys are my ninja escorts. Nice to meet you." said Gohan with a bow of respect.

"Hmmm... Well, he's a polite one." analytically said Kakashi. 'Who does this guy think he is? Mr. "I don't need protection" Give me a break! I'll show him what a real ninja is and then he'll see that he definitely needs protection!' thought Naruto as he eyed Gohan angrily.

'Hn, this guy dosen't seem to be very much to me at first glance. But then why did he say what he said earlier? "Doesn't need our protection" huh? This guy either thinks very highly of himself or he thinks very lowly of us. Either way I don't care. He's probably not even worth my time.' thought Sasuke more observingly as he immediately just dismissed him as a threat.

Well, he seems nice enough and he's even cute too but still he doesn't look like a prince charming to me. But overall not bad.' thought Sakura, giving him her own 'appraisal' and though liking what she sees she was still not too impressed.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you too Gohan. I'm Kakashi Hatake the squad leader and these are my students, Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki. Altogether we're Squad 7 and we'll be your escorts on your journey." introduced Kakashi while each member gave his/her own special 'Hi' in order.

"Very nice to meet you all. Although you're not exactly what I imagined you to be I'm glad that you're here. I'm sure that you're all well qualified ninja and that you'll do all of your bests in protecting me to my destination. And thank you all for taking the opportunity to be my bodyguards." Gohan said with another bow of respect.

"Well thank you young prince, but I'm afraid that we have a long road ahead of us and it'd be best if we got underway immediately. There will be plenty of time to get acquainted with each other while on the trip. But for now let's head out Squad 7!" said Kakashi and everyone, Gohan included, immediately started moving out and out passed the gates on their way to their destination.

A little while longer once they were passed the village and got onto the open road they decided it was time to get further acquainted. "So? What should we be addressing ya as? Your Majesty? Or just simply your Royal Highness?" Naruto asked as a kind of half-joke and half-poke at his supposedly royal title.

"Oh? Just call me Gohan. I don't really like people addressing me like that. I've only been a 'real prince' for only a few months now and it's only at big ceremonies and stuff like that that I actually allow people to call me that." Gohan sincerely replied with a bit of a nervous smile.

"You've only been a prince for a few months? What do you mean by that? How is that even possible?" asked a very confused and curious Sakura who scooted up right next to him and way too close for comfort which made him feel even more awkward.

"Well, you see I've always lived in a small house in the countryside with my mom and dad like a normal person. It wasn't until a few months ago that I discovered that my grandfather was the king of his own village with a castle and everything, to me he was always just my grampa. You see when my mom married my dad she decided to live with him in the countryside instead of the palace but when she did that she also renounced her status as a princess and so it was decided that I would be the next in line as the crown prince. Of course I wasn't told about this until a few months ago on my 12th birthday so this is all still new to me." explained Gohan with a nervous but friendly smile. "Wow! Talk about lucky..." muttered an amazed Sakura with white encircled anime eyes.

Naruto however, wasn't as impressed as Sakura was. "Hmph! So what? So he didn't live in a palace all his life, so what? That doesn't mean he's like us or anything. He could still be an arrogant rich jerk who looks down on us as if we were poor commoners. It's not like he's earned what he's got like some of us have to do." annoyedly scoffed Naruto from his position further up front with his hands lazily placed behind his head. Sakura shot Naruto a glare for his remark.

"You don't mind him Gohan. He's only jealous that you get to be so lucky and he's not. So you've lived in the countryside with your mom and dad all your life huh? That sounds nice. What was it like for you and your family when you were living there?" inquired a now curious Sakura, wanting to know more about him.

"Well I still live there, I just go to the palace to visit my grampa and for official business and stuff like that. We like the peace and quiet that surrounds our home and we prefer the privacy of our lives instead of being on display for the public." answered Gohan.

"Oh? Well that sounds fair. I sure wouldn't want people with cameras bothering me at my home all the time neither. So, do you have any interests?" asked Sakura, now finding him to be much more likable then she at first thought. "Well, I sorta have an interest in the Martial Arts which I train in in my spare time when I'm not studying or helping to take care of Goten." Gohan admitted a bit bashfully with a small nervous blush and a small scratch to his nose.

"Eh!? You practice Martial Arts!?" exclaimed Sakura a bit more loudly than Gohan would've liked. This statement by Sakura caught both Naruto's and even Sasuke's ears. "So? Is that why we overheard you saying that you didn't need protection and that you could "take care of yourself" back at the palace? Is it that you think that your "Martial Arts" training is so superior to our ninja style training that you look down on us and that you don't need us?" confronted Sasuke with a particularly eye piercing glare directed at Gohan.

"Wait a minute! I didn't mean it like that but it's just that I've progressed so much in my training that I've equalled or surpassed my teachers in martial arts and I feel that I can take care of myself against most opponents. It's not that I don't think you guys aren't strong, it's just that I feel that I could probably just protect myself just as good as you can protect me. I'm just not sure how our two styles of fighting could compare to each other if we were to fight one another. My style could be seriously weaker against your ninja style and that the same could be said for your style. We're just not sure and that's why we hired you to protect me." Gohan answered in a partial truth, not wanting to make himself seem so much stronger than them even though he probably is and accidently alienate them.

The squad seemed to accept his honest sounding explanation as the truth. "Hmph! Well I guess that means that us ninja are just gonna afta show you how awesome we are!" Naruto said while flashing a foxy grin. Gohan returned his 'challenge' with a Son grin of his own which was joined by both Sakura and Sasuke who were all looking forward to the challenge.

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_**And so the start of a magnificent new part of the story. This idea of mine about a crossover has been in my head for a **_**loooong**_**, long time. So just to let you know, I'm setting the Naruto Universe as the same in the Dragonball Universe. I know that conventional wisdom is to separate them. But in this one they're in the same. And just so that if I didn't make it clear already, in this world the 'Ninja World' that we see on the Naruto map is separated from the rest of the world and is part of the larger map of the Dragonball world. It's just that they are considered seperate continent that is not usually visited by those outside it. Nor those inside it go out as the ninja's are not usually interested in the workings of the outside world. And so both sides pretty much stay to one side of the other's business and leave them to their own devices. And not only that, but I'm setting this story in the same timeline as the events of my Dragonball Z story. So if you want to know where Gohan really is in this timeline you should really read that story before you do this.**_

_**But for those of you who **_**did**_** read my story. just for the sake of convenience let me tell you that this takes place about a few months after the World Tournament for Gohan. So he's been living the life of being the official prince of his grandfather's kingdom for a little while now. And as for Team 7 it's shortly before Sasuke's about to leave but after the Tsunade arc. So it's right around the same time as that episode in the anime where the gang tried to unmask Kakashi.**_

_**So if you're wondering why Gohan's family has engaged ninja's to protect Gohan when they know perfectly well that he's more powerful than them? The reason is because the Z-Fighters have heard about the ninja's in their world and are unsure about their powers. So that's why their prudent about sending for ninjas to protect against other ninjas. That and they're also curious about them and the abilities. Weither they're stronger than them, or that their powers are just different than them and hard to combat. So that's why they've sent him. They've sent Gohan on a little 'reconnaissance' mission to find out about them and observe them. Hoping of using Gohan's natural disarmability about being a child and therefore 'harmless' in order to let the ninja let down their guard and show their powers in front of Gohan in order to watch them. So that's the secret agenda that Gohan was assigned if you didn't catch it in between the lines.**_

_**But anyway, consider this whole 'crossover' thing like more of a **_**What If:**_** scenario than a part of he actual main story. But so anyway, on with the show! Here it is the beginning of the 1st Part of my Two-Part crossover story.**_


	2. Campfires and Apparitions

**Chapter :2**

**Campfires and Apparitions**

A little later on in the evening, the squad stopped bye the side of the road and set up camp for the night. After they set up camp they settled themselves in at the campfire and soon began to talk amongst themselves. Chief among the subjects was that the members of Squad 7 wanted to learn more about their new client named Gohan, but the same could be said vice-versa.

"So? Could you guys tell me the reasons why you decided to become ninjas?" asked Gohan as he was curious to as their individual reasons for becoming ninja and also getting off the first strike before anybody else could on him.

"Well, if I would have to guess I would say that my reasons were the great ninja legends and stories I was told as a child by my parents as my bedtime stories. I guess I decided from then on that I wanted to be a great kunoichi like in the stories. But then, after I entered the academy I sort've found 'other goals'." explained Sakura as she then glanced over in Sasuke's direction and blushed along with a small giggle. Gohan didn't quite catch what she was meaning but Sasuke did and it didn't affect him at all as he stayed motionless in his 'brooding' position.

"For me, the reasons why I became a shinobi is because I have an ambition that I must fulfill. I'm going to restore my clan, but before I do that I have to kill a certain someone who's responsible for its destruction." chillingly said Sasuke. While Gohan didn't exactly know the specifics, he nonetheless recognized the look in Sasuke's eyes as those of someone hell bent on a course of revenge. Sakura however was knocked off her swooning over Sasuke by what she once would've thought as 'cool' but that now she was quite discomforted by his chilling statement. Naruto on the other hand gave a saddened look as he knew exactly what and who Sasuke was talking about, his older brother Itachi.

"Hey Naruto, how about you?" asked Gohan, going ahead to try to move on and shift everyone's mood. At that, Naruto immediately perked up with a dangerously foxy grin on his face. The others from Team 7 either groaned both internally or externally as they all knew what was coming next.

"Me? I became a ninja because it's my dream to one day be the greatest Hokage in history! Believe it!" exclaimed Naruto as finished his boast standing up with his index finger pointed directly at Gohan. The other Team members groaned even more but Gohan however was confused.

"What the heck's a Hokage?" Gohan asked, genuinely clueless as to what the term meant. "What's a Hokage? You don't know about the Greatest...*muffled mumbles*" exclaimed Naruto in anger before he had his mouth shut by Kakashi's hand before he could accidently say something that would upset their client.

"Why don't I explain what a Hokage is Gohan. You see the Hokage or 'Fire Shadow' is the leader of our village. He is the leader for all the ninjas and is therefore acknowledged as the strongest ninja in the whole village by the ninja under him. It is his job to lead and protect the village and all who inhabit it at the cost of his life if necessary. They are revered to as our greatest heroes." explained Kakashi. "Yeah, and someday I'm gonna be the greater than all of them." said Naruto after being let go by Kakashi.

"What about you Kakashi-sensei? Why don't you join in?" asked Sakura. "Me? No, I don't really feel like telling you." answered Kakashi as he then lazily lounged himself on his back and went to continue reading his favorite orange book which made everybody sweatdrop.

"Hey! What about you Gohan? Do you have any dreams?" asked Sakura, redirecting the conversation back to its originator and eager to hear as to what his aspirations are as too did everyone else on Team 7 did. "Me? Well, I used to want to become a great scholar for my mom so I would study all day and every day. But then I realized that becoming a scholar was what my mother had dreamed for me and it wasn't what I really wanted. I realised that all my life I looked up to my father because of how strong and kind hearted he was. He was always the greatest warrior around, saving the day many times in battle and everyone around sort of considered him to be the greatest hero in the world. As I experienced the life of a martial artist by training, sparring and fighting by my father's side did I see how truly great he really was and then I felt that that was what I wanted to become like. I now dream that someday I grow up to be something like my dad, who's a great warrior and a true hero." summerized Gohan as hundreds of memories all flowed through his mind.

A mixed reaction could be seen on the faces of the shinobi of Team 7 but generally they approved of their young guest's dream. "A son who wants to become like his father or even one day surpassing him. Seems like a very high goal for yourself Gohan and at the same time so... appropriate." Kakashi said cryptically while casting his one visible eye in Naruto's direction.

Sakura however, was struck by how deep and empassioned Gohan sounded when he talked about his aspirations. It made him seem so mature and strong and it surprised her to see such thoughtfullness coming from such an unassuming boy. 'Woah, this guy is definitely much more than he first seemed. I'd never have pegged him for being a deep guy.' thought Sakura in her head. Sasuke however, just let out a "Hn." not caring either way.

Naruto on the other hand smiled an honest smile that spoke of understanding and acknowledgement. "Sounds like a pretty great dream you have there Gohan. You know it's funny how you want to grow up to be like your dad and I want to grow up to be the Hokage. I feel like we're sorta the same like that. But although I think that being the Hokage is a much cooler dream than just growing up to be like someones dad." said Naruto with his hands in the back of his head and smiling his foxy smile. Gohan was surprised by the last comment and although he didn't appreciate it he didn't hold it against Naruto either for thinking that way. Gohan just laughed awkwardly with one hand behind his head but everyone else rounded on Naruto with glaring eyes.

"Naaa rrruuu toooo... that was not very nice of you..." said the growling voice of an angry Sakura, shaking her fist at him. Naruto postured up his hands defensively grinning awkwardly to try to placate Sakura before he knew she would throw a fist at him. But at that point Gohan spoke up.

"Don't worry, it's alright Sakura it really does sound like a bigger dream than mine and I don't he meant anything by it." said Gohan, sounding totally casual about it, trying to appease the situation. At that point Sakura let it drop and Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. Sakura then went in and leaned in to Naruto's ear. "*Whispers* Your so lucky he's such a laid back guy." menacingly whispered Sakura. The rest of the campfire went on pretty uneventfully after that and the group eventually retired to their sleeping bags for the night.

Late during the night, Gohan woke up and snuck out of their tent to go out into the woods for some secret activites. A little later during the night Sakura woke up to find the urge to do some "business" out in the woods. She groggily got out of her sleeping bag and exited the tent, but being still half asleep and pre-occupied with certain other "needs" she failed to notice the fact that one of their sleeping bags was empty, notably that of one Gohan Son.

Sakura set out into the woods and took care of her "business" out in the little ladies room behind some bushes. But just as she finished pulling up her pants a soft yellow glow burst up from behind the trees somewhere off to her right side. The glow burst on with the sound of an explosion and then a chirping sound accompanied the glow until it died down, the chirping lowering as the light died down. Curious as to the strange event, Sakura went in the direction of where she saw the light coming from.

She eventually came up to an end to the woods where she found a rocky stream streaming through the middle of the woods like a road and in the middle of the stream she found a person. Sakura hid behind some bushes at the edge of the woods and from there she saw in her eyes the most magnificient sight she'd thought she'd ever seen. Levitating a few inches just above the water was a male figure totally covered in shadow by the moonlight bouncing off the water. This male figure was shirtless but obviously wearing pants, but she could see even through the obscurity that he was built with muscles that looked like they were chisseled out of marble. He also had spiky hair that seemed to defy gravity except for a lone spike in front of his face of which she couldn't see clearly but she could see an ever present scowl that made him look ever angry but in a sorta way it was hot.

The figure was spinning around while going through arm movements that looked like some form of martial arts but that to her it looked more like a dance in which in his spinning kicked up some water spray. The whole effect made the apparent "apparition" look totally ethereal and almost mystical or magical to her. She thought it was almost as if she was watching something out of a fairytale. She moved forward to try to get a better look but accidently stepped on a twig which alerted the figure to her presence. He turned a side look in surprise but with his ever present scowl still in place and in that brief moment she could've sworn she saw a green eye looking at her. But the look back startled her so much that she tried to scram out of there but somehow tripped over herself while doing so and ended up tumbling into the running water.

"Oops! Sorry! Thisisallmyfault. I didn't mean to intrude like this but I couldn't help it. I hope I didn't... offend... you..." tried to apologize Sakura but she cut herself off when she saw that there was no one there, as if there wasn't anyone there in the first place. As she stood up completely baffled she failed to notice a distinctly folded white chinese shirt and a pair of black shoes and white socks at the edge of the stream.

'Phew! That was close! I hope she didn't recognize me?' thought Gohan as he squatted on a tree branch overlooking Sakura. He'd used his super speed to faze out before she could open her eyes to focus on him and then he powered down to his normal form and lowered his energy as low as he could just for safe measure.

"I wonder who that was? Or What it was?" muttered Sakura, answering Gohan's previous thought. 'Maybe going out to train at Super Saiyan 2 wasn't such a good idea tonight.' Gohan thought to himself. He had been trying to perfect his Super Saiyan 2 form by training without the aura so as to improve his control like he'd done with the first form of Super Saiyan. But now, with this little "close encounter" he would have to put a cork on any serious training until at least the trip was over.

After standing there in the running water for a while wondering about the "apparition", Sakura finally decided that it was a vain search and went back to return to camp. All the while she was observed by Gohan who immediately fazed out after she left out of sight and grabbed his discarded clothes. He realised that he had to made it back before her, otherwise she might notice his empty sleeping bag and begin to suspect him. Gohan put his shirt back on and his shoes and then used the Instant Transmission technique to make it back in a snap. Sakura returned and found nothing out of place so she went back to sleep. "Phew! That one was too close." whispered Gohan, secretly observing Sakura as she went back to her sleeping bag and then he too went back to sleep.

The next morning the party were once again on the move. "ACHOO!" randomly sneezed Sakura as she traveled near the back of the group. "Hey Sakura, are you catching a cold?" asked a curious and concerned Naruto who walked up next to her. "No, I'm just fine. But after what happened to me last night it wouldn't surprise me. Although if I saw what I think I saw then it would've been worth it." answered Sakura with dreamy looking smile on her face. "Well, what happened to you then? What did you see last night?" asked an innocently curious Naruto. Meanwhile, Gohan who was further ahead in the group formation, couldn't help but listen in with his higher than human hearing.

"Well I woke up to go pee last night and I saw a yellow light flash from behind me. I went to check it out and I saw the most incredible thing I've ever seen. Floating above the water in the middle of this river stood this guy with a totally amazing god-like body. He was spinning around with these beautiful body movements almost like a ballerina. I've never seen anything so powerful and graceful before, it was awesome." detailed Sakura as she had a far-off dreamy look in her eyes. Gohan secretly blushed in embarrassment out of their sight as he heard Sakura compliment what he knew to be his body.

Naruto however, wasn't liking where this was going. "So what did you do?" asked a slightly jealous looking Naruto. Sakura angrily and annoyedly blushed in embarrassement at what she would next have to admit. "Well I sorta stepped on a twig and when he noticed me I panicked and I tripped over myself and landed in the water. But when I looked back up he was gone. And when turned to look at me I could've sworn I saw a glowing green eye." answered Sakura, sounding a bit weirded out.

"Are you sure you really saw that? Are you sure you didn't just dream it up?" asked a now very skeptical sounding Naruto. "*sigh* I'm not sure what I saw. But then again I guess my mind could've been playing tricks on me." said a defeated sounding Sakura. Back up front, Gohan breathed a sigh of relief as the group continued walking uneventfully along it's road.

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_**Well there you go, the second chapter. Part of the first half of this chapter had my stumped for a long time about Sasuke's reaction to things and I had a bit of writers bloc about it. But then I finally unblocked it and just went for it! The first half was obviously about the two sets gathering around a fire and getting to know one another. Now just to be fair, even though his new life is a lot more exposed in this time to the public in this world, Gohan is still shy and a bit timid and doesn't want his new friends to know more about him if he can help it. He still feels that they might alienate him because of his powers so he's still trying to hide them as much as possible and not reveal much about his life. At least not the parts he does't want to show. That and as part of his little 'mission'.**_

_**But I hope you liked the little Sakura's version of the **_**'Hinata Waterfall Scene'**_** with Gohan. That idea was in my head for a long time and just **_**had**_** to share it. But don't worry, Sakura and Gohan are **_**not**_** going to 'hook up' because of this, I promise you. This is just some bit of harmless fun.**_


	3. The Ninja Ambush

**Chapter: 3**

**The Ninja Ambush**

As Team 7 and it's client were walking along the road when they came across a lone puddle in the middle of the road. Kakashi along with all the younger members of the ninja Squad 7 noticed the trick as they had seen it once before. But Gohan however noticed that he was feeling a strange energy coming from the puddle but didn't know what exactly what it meant and so he didn't react to it, trusting instead in his ninja escorts to know what was happening and know what to do.

After they passed the puddle, a short figure with a peige colored wetsuit-like uniform, wearing a mask and a respirator like device emerged from the puddle and threw a two sided kunai which was sent spinning horizontally like a helicopter blade directly to the middle of the group, targeting Gohan. But before the spinning kunai could reach it's target, Naruto who was closest to Gohan grabbed him and all of the ninja simultaniously leaped up into the air and easily avoided the spinning projectile which went sailing underneath.

While they were still in mid-air, Naruto glanced down to see their would be attacker still half submerged in the puddle and wide eyed at his failed attack.

"Man! The old puddle trick? Did they really think we would fall for that one again?" said Naruto confidently. But meanwhile his "passenger" that he had grabbed, namely Gohan, overheard him and himself glanced down and saw the strange figure still half submerged in a puddle of water.

'Puddle trick? Well that's a new one.' thought Gohan, finding it very weird to see someone half submerged in a puddle of water like that, but as weird as he found it, he had to admit that he'd seen far weirder things in his life before, but not by much. He mentally added this to the list of really weird powers he'd seen.

They landed back down in the middle of the road in ready stances and the enemy Rain shinobi ninja leaped out of the puddle and over their heads to land in front of the group along with adjoining another two Rain Ninja who also ninja leaped from the surrounding trees. From what Gohan could see of the total three Rain Ninja the first one in the middle had both eye holes in his mask, another one had only one and the last had none and looked like he almost had to be blind.

"Aww man! Not these guys again." lamented Naruto, recognizing their foes as the same Rain Ninja Genin they defeated before.

"Huh? Friends of yours?" asked sarcastically Gohan.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. They're a bunch of Rain Ninja Genin we fought back in the Chunin Exams. And we beat their ass!" explained/boasted Naruto, although he still remained tense along with everybody else.

"You jerks, because of you we've fallen out of favor back at our home village and had a hard time. But now looks like we get to return the favor." retorted one of the Rain Ninja, apparently the leader with his weasy breath voice.

"Oh yeah? Well how are you going to do that this time? We were exhausted last time and you couldn't even beat us then! And this time we've got our Jonin sensei with us. What do you think'll make things any better for you this time?" shot back Sasuke, feeling very confident in their chances now.

"I guess that would be me." said a voice from out in the trees before a fourth figure appeared from the trees revealing a person that Squad 7 knew well. "KABUTO!?" exclaimed almost all the members of Squad 7 nearly at once.

"Kabuto... what are you doing here? And with these three no less." said Kakashi, his lone eye staring a hole in Kabuto. But Kabuto remained just as smug as he always was and relaxed with his posture as his left hand was on his hip like it usually was.

"The Hidden Sound Village received a top paid mission from a certain client to have this boy "eliminated" from his meeting either by killing or capture. Lord Orochimaru chose me to handle this assignment personally and that's when I ran into these three and... Well... let's just say our interests coincided with each other. I needed some extra help in dealing with the escorts and they needed some extra muscle backing them up in order to get their little revenge. And so we decided to cooperate temporarily in order to accomplish both of our goals." explained Kabuto, pushing up his glasses in the sinister way he did.

"Who's this Kabuto guy?" asked Gohan. "He's a sick, twisted, medical ninja who we thought was our friend back during the Chunin Exams but he turned out to be spying on us for the Sound Village the whole time! But I blew him away with a super cool technique I learned!" explained Naruto while making a fist at Kabuto.

'New technique huh? I wonder what he's talking about?' thought Sasuke and Sakura as well had similar thoughts.

"Ahh Naruto, always a pleasure. I'll admit that last time I underestimated you and that you caught me with a powerful and impressive technique. But I won't be making the same mistake twice so you'll never be able to hit me in it again and that you're still no match for me." silkily said Kabuto.

"WHAT WAS THAT! I'LL SHOW YOU JUST WHO'S NOT A MATCH FOR WHO!" screamed Naruto as he tried to blindly rush at Kabuto in anger but Kakashi's arm held him back.

"Easy there Naruto, I understand how you want to prove yourself against Kabuto and that you probably could take him on and maybe even win. But with the way things are right here right now you're best served helping the others deal with the Rain ninja. Don't worry, I'll take care of Kabuto for you. And while I'm doing that I want you and the others protecting my back. I'll be counting on you." said Kakashi.

And although Naruto felt a little slighted at being basically sent back to the minor leagues, he begrudgingly had to agree with Kakashi's assessment, but however Kakashi's baiting of having to "protect" his rear was too much of an opportunity to miss and made him feel a little better as he pulled back into his position.

"You take care of me? I'd like to see you try. But anyway I'll humour you, let's get down to it... You know what to do." confidently said Kabuto, the last part he said to the Rain Genin. At that point the Rain ninja made some handsigns and then hundreds of black colored versions of the Rain ninja themselves began emerging from the ground and trees like ghosts or spirits, surrounding them from both sides of the road.

"Woah! What are these things?" exclaimed a surprised Gohan, never having seen things quite like this before.

"Genjutsu, they're using a type of technique to affect our brains in order to make us think they're clones out there when there really isn't and wear us down. Naruto! You know what to do!" explained Sakura as she then signaled Naruto. "Right! Gotcha!" affirmed Naruto as he then crossed his fingers into his signature sign and hundreds of his Shadow Clones poofed into existence to charge and start beating down the enemy clones. At that point, Gohan was amazed by the Shadow Clone Jutsu of Naruto and by how many he could produce.

'Wow, it's just like Tien's Multiform technique but only a lot more bigger in numbers. I wonder what Tien would think about this kid. If he ever got his hands on him ...' thought Gohan in awe.

At that point the Rain Genin could tell that their technique wasn't going to work with a fully charged and fresh Naruto so they then went to engage the Leaf ninja face to face. Sasuke engaged the leader in zipping blurry black streaks, clashing in midair with kunai.

"Tch, your Taijutsu seems to be stronger than it was before." bantered Sasuke as he clashed kunai with his opponent. "Since you defeated us in the Chunin Exams because we were weak in taijutsu and you took advantage of that. We've been busy improving our Taijutsu so that we'd wouldn't be defeated again." responded the leader of the Rain ninja in his weazy voice.

Meantime, Sakura was engaged with another member of the Rain ninja in hand to hand combat and fought defensively, defending herself with a kunai. And all the while Naruto engaged in a massive clone battle with the remaining member of the Rain ninja.

Meanwhile, while all of this was happening, the two most senior ninja on the battlefield still hadn't moved. Kakashi and Kabuto were still staring at each other intensily, not having taken their eyes off each other for an instant. "I've long been awaiting for this day for us to be facing each other. I've been wanting to see who's stronger between me and the Leaf's famous Copy Ninja Kakashi." said Kabuto.

"That's funny, because I've also been waiting for this day... The day I finally put a stop to you." said Kakashi, saying that last part intimidatingly while pushing up his headband to reveal his Sharingan eye. At that point they both summoned kunai into each of their hands and then went at each other to engage in an all-out war of kunai-on-kunai fighting.

In the meantime, as the battles began to take place all around him, Gohan just stood there in the middle of the turmoil with his eyes darting back and forth the same way he would do for keeping track of one of "his" own battles in order to keep track of each seperate ninja battle so he could observe the way ninja fight.

For a while everybody was just too busy with their own private battles to notice him, until Kakashi that is, took a glance while tangled up with Kabuto.

He was surprised to say the least to see him so calm in the middle of all this and wondered about such strange eye movement. Unfortunately Kabuto took advantage of Kakashi's brief diversion of attention to drop his right hand kunai and replace it with a Chakra Scalpel to try to swipe at Kakashi's face. But Kakashi such managed to react in time to weave out of the way.

"Getting careless there Kakashi, you should be more on your guard." taunted Kabuto before they then resumed fighting. Both Kakashi and Kabuto were evenly matched, even though Kakashi had his Sharingan to stay one step ahead of Kabuto's attacks, Kabuto was fast enough and skilled enough to stay one step ahead of Kakashi's counterstrokes so as neither one of them could land a hit on the other, a stalemate.

Kakashi however, wasn't the only one to notice Gohan's eye movement. Sakura also had a glance in the middle of her fight. 'Gohan? What the...' she thought before she was cut off by her opposing Rain ninja trying to cut her head off which Sakura managed to duck just in time and their fight continued.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was still embroiled with Kabuto. 'This is taking too long. Sad to say but Kakashi's too much for me. I'll have to find some way to get past him and get on to the target.' thought Kabuto as he started thinking on devising a way to get past Kakashi while they dueled. But when they once again fixed their kunai with one another Kakashi went to finish things off with his trademark Lightning Blade while he had him pinned. The attack pierced Kabuto through the chest, but then color drained from his face as he turned into a pile of mud.

'Huh!? Mud Clone... When did he...' thought Kakashi before he was cut off by a laughing Kabuto who was running past behind him. "Hahahaha! Sorry that I can't stick around playing with you but I've got a mission to complete and it comes first." taunted Kabuto.

Oh No! He's going after Gohan!' realized Kakashi as he then unstuck his hand from the mud and went after the running Kabuto trying to intercept him but it was too late as he already had a head start.

Kabuto was heading for Gohan at his maximum breakneck speed aiming to kill him with a Kunai. At these breakneck speeds Kabuto figured that his target wouldn't be able to see him even though he was coming straight from the front and yet as he came on Gohan was seemingly looking straight at him with a deadly serious look in his eyes as if he was waiting for him to make a move.

In fact Gohan could see him coming and he was about to make his move in blocking Kabuto's attack but something stopped him. Something had moved in and stopped the attack before he could.

It was Naruto! Somehow he'd gotten past his Rain ninja opponent and caught Kabuto's attack. Kabuto couldn't believe that he'd been stopped again by Naruto in almost the exact same way. But something was different this time as malicious and ominous energy emanated from Naruto in droves and when he looked up at Kabuto in the eyes Kabuto could see red slitted demon-like eyes and more defined wisker marks on his face. 'The Nine-Tailed-Fox's Chakra! This isn't good...' thought Kabuto.

"**You won't ever lay a finger on Gohan...**" said Naruto in an angry and more graver voice that was laced with bad intentions. The ominous event had brought a halt to all other fighting as everyone brought their eyes to see what was happening. It was at that point that Naruto cocked back an energy laced fist and threw it which sent Kabuto flying straight back a few feet off the ground.

'Man, what is this energy I'm sensing from Naruto? It's ominous and very strong...' thought Gohan as he stared at Naruto's back in surprise. At that point Naruto glanced back and Gohan caught the side of his face along with one transformed eye. But a few seconds after he checked, Naruto's eye slowly returned to its normal blue.

"Are you alright?" asked Naruto. Gohan just nodded in reply. 'Yup, He's pretty strong alright. And it looks like there's more than meets the eye with him.' thought Gohan with a smile as he could recognize to look in a heroes' eyes.

Everyone else had been stunned by what they saw, but Team 7 managed to take advantage of their oppositions' distraction to catch them off guard with punches to the face. The Rain ninja regrouped around Kabuto who had managed to recover a bit and who was currently lifting himself up while holding his jaw. At that point Sasuke took advantage of the separation to launch a Fireball Jutsu in between the two groups and then followed it up with a Phoenix Flower Jutsu to create a literal wall of fire to prevent the opposition from attacking again.

"Why don't we attack just them again? We can still do it!" suggested one of the Rain ninja. "No... They're too strong as a group for us. And besides... our target is no ordinary one I don't think." said Kabuto as he remembered that look Gohan gave him as he sped at him at high speed. "So what do we do now?" asked another one of the Rain ninja. "For now... retreat..." flatly and frustratingly said Kabuto as they then retreated back into the trees.

The battle was over and the members of Team 7 stood tall in the middle of the road. But a few questions still lingered in each of their minds as to what happened here. But those question were for a later time as they went to rest.

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_** And so they were ambushed by ninjas. Did you ever think that I would make this fic and not have a little ninja on ninja action? There's no way I could get away with that. Anyway, I tried to find a suitable villains for them to tangle with and I hoped I'd done justice to the way they were fighting and given each character the appropriate moves and tactics accordingly to canon. So I hope you enjoyed. **_


	4. Sakura's Exposure

**Chapter :4**

**Sakura's "Exposure"**

The members of Team 7 along with Gohan once again set up camp for the night after having rested from their altercation with the enemy ninja during the day. Although questions hung in the back of everyones mind about the series of events that took place during that engagement, no one spoke about it as they just wanted to get on with what they had to do and put it in the back of their heads.

While they were getting on with their tasks Sakura noticed that they still had some slightly small bruises and scratches along their arms and legs from the fight. Sakura had some medicinal cream that she was carrying with herself and she gave some to Sasuke and Naruto quickly took some too. "Thanks for the cream Sakura." said Naruto without thinking.

Sasuke began applying it to his legs and Naruto was merrily applying some to his wrist when all of a sudden a punch hit him on the cheek from behind and laid him out on his side. Naruto looked up at an angry looking Sakura while holding his cheek with a look of surprise and what was as if saying 'What the heck did I do this time?'. "Stupid Naruto! That cream was for Sasuke!" yelled Sakura as she then went back to looking at Sasuke all fawny like. Sasuke looked back at her with a raised eyebrow as if to say 'This girl is weird and annoying.' but then looked away and didn't do anything as he went back to creaming his legs, not caring about the plight of Naruto.

Naruto could take a hint, he got back up and walked away looking like a puppy who'd been kicked and a player who'd been picked last for a team all rolled into one. Gohan watched the whole thing and felt revulsed. He went up to Sakura and confronted her. "Sakura, what did Naruto do to deserve that?" asked Gohan, sounding genuinely confused. "Well... Um... well he's Naruto!... Besides he always takes things like that off the shoulder." said Sakura, not having realized what she'd done and hastily trying to come up with an excuse and not really finding a good one she tried to pass it off.

But Gohan wasn't buying it. "Well it didn't look like he just 'took it off the shoulder' this time. He was only healing his wounds just like you and Sasuke. And should Sasuke be the only one whose allowed to heal himself? That's not fair. And you didn't need to hit him to make your point." said Gohan, now sounding genuinely angry. Sakura heard what he said and then finally her brain caught up to her actions and she realized what exactly she'd done. She now genuinely felt bad about what she'd done to Naruto, feeling sick to her stomach. She realized that she had to say sorry and went to go apologize to Naruto.

Sakura found Naruto sitting at the base of a tree somewhere nearby in the woods close to camp. Naruto was picking up rocks and throwing them in a depressing looking manner. "Um... Naruto?... Look I'm sorry. I'm sorry about what happened back there." said Sakura hesitantly but genuinely. Naruto was surprised to see her there and apologizing no less.

"Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for? I'm the one who screwed up." said Naruto while trying to cover up and pass it off with a huge megawatt fake smile. But Sakura wasn't fooled, she knew that something was deeply bothering him because as soon as he was done and turned his head back she caught a glimpse of the look of hurt in his eyes before he fully turned away.

"No Naruto, don't try to pretend. I'm the one who screwed up and did wrong. You were just putting cream to heal your wounds. I'm the one who overreacted and punched you when you hadn't really done anything wrong. I didn't really mean to hurt your feelings over it." earnestly apologised Sakura, but Naruto just continued to sit there unmoved throwing rocks at random. "It's not just about what happened just then... It's... it's... well... **everything!**" yelled Naruto at the end. "Huh?...Naruto?" squeaked Sakura as she was surprised by both Naruto's reaction and by what Naruto called 'everything'.

"It's just that all the time when it comes to between me and Sasuke with you I'm always the one who gets beat up. Whenever Sasuke says something bad to me or calls me loser you just stand back and laugh. But whenever I say something back, you hit me and say I'm stupid. You're always on Sasuke's side just like everyone else and everyone else keeps telling me how better Sasuke is then me. Sasuke's a great ninja, I'm not... Sasuke's cool, I'm not... Sasuke's handsome, I'm not... Sasuke's a genius, I'm not..." said Naruto as he kept throwing self-deprecating jabs at himself while throwing a rock for each jab.

Meanwhile Sakura was taken aback by Naruto's words as she could feel each shot of self-criticism he shot out felt like a knife cutting at her heart as she knew that she was at least partially to blame, if not mostly to blame for those words Naruto was throwing out. She was also taken aback by the hurt and despair she felt from Naruto's words. For the first time she felt like she was really seeing the true Naruto that was underneath the surface and that she sometimes thought she would see a glimmer of sometimes. But now this was different as she'd never seen him act like this nor thought she ever would and that in that she could truly see the true hurt, pain and total deficiency that he was feeling.

'I never knew that Naruto felt this way. I mean I never meant to hurt him... Scratch that I did mean to hurt him, but not like this!' thought Sakura as she realised the magnitude of what she'd done. She knew what it was like to feel this way, as she thought of Ino and some other girls along those lines and so could sympathize.

"...Sasuke's from a great ninja clan, I'm not... Sasuke's..." Naruto attempted to continue but he was cut off. "Stop it Naruto! That's enough!... you've made your point..." pleaded Sakura, sounding deflated, almot to the brink of tears. "S-Sakura...?" eeped out a confused sounding Naruto. "But... You're not that bad a guy... In fact you're a lot better than Kakashi, Sasuke or... even I give you credit for most of the time. And even though Sasuke has a lot of great things, I guess he has his faults too and you've got great things too and qualities that he doesn't have. Things that I even admire you for sometimes." admitted Sakura.

"B-But, but why do you keep saying such bad things to me all the time? I mean, aren't we friends?" asked a shocked and confused Naruto. "I've said a lot of things that I don't really mean. But I think so much about what Sasuke thinks that I keep forgetting about your feelings and that's not fair. It's not fair the way I treat you and you deserve better. I'm sorry for that. And we are friends! I guess I could treat you a bit better in front of Sasuke and I guess Sasuke isn't right all the time so I guess I could be a little more severe on him from time to time. So from now on I'm going to treat you better as a friend as the friend you are." promised Sakura as it was the best she could offer. Naruto smiled a warm smile and causing Sakura to smile one back as they felt that things were righted between them.

Not long afterwards Naruto and Sakura emerged from the brush back at the camp looking content with smiles and giggles. Gohan glanced up from his crouched position collecting firewood and noticed the pair returning and judging from the content looks on their faces that they were throwing at each other he could tell what probably happened between them. Gohan crouched up and gave Sakura a smile along with a single nod to acknowledge what he knew she'd done and Sakura returned it in thanks to his advice that made her do it. But Gohan wasn't the only one to notice the return as Sasuke also noticed shortly after their arrival.

"Hey loser, I'm glad you're finally back. Because if you're done with having your hand held you can actually do something other than be useless for a change in your life and help us set up camp." remarked Sasuke in his usual 'I don't care' fashion. Sasuke was expecting Naruto to respond irately to him as would usually happen but that wasn't what he got.

WHAMMM! A solid punch to the jaw was what he got that sent Sasuke flying into a tree courtesy of Sakura. "Don't you say such rude things about Naruto!" yelled Sakura with an angry face while holding a fist at Sasuke.

Everyone was surprised by turnout that Sakura had not only defended Naruto but also punched Sasuke who was still holding his cheek with wide eyes in surprise. But no one was more surprised at this than Naruto, knowing that Sakura truly meant what she'd said and was willing to go that far to make the point. After that event, things wound down and everyone went back to their tasks as if nothing had happened.

Some time later in the evening, Sakura had just finished her task of setting up her own tent when she sniffed herself. Sakura was still all smudged up and dirtied from the fight and so she decided she needed a wash. She went up to Kakashi and the boys who were finishing up settling firewood. "Kakashi sensei, do you know where I could find a place to wash? I need to take a shower." asked Sakura.

"Sure, I spotted a natural hotspring not too far from here in the woods. Me, Naruto and Sasuke have already taking our turns so shouldn't be disturbed." pointed Kakashi to somewhere out in the woods. "Thank you sensei." bowed Sakura as she then went out to the hotspring. "Now, has anyone seen Gohan?" questioned Kakashi, noticing the lack of their young charges' presence once Sakura was gone from view.

Sakura reached the hotspring a fair distance away from the camp and it was a pool of steaming water surrounded by the treeline and it was supplied by beautiful small waterfalls flowing from a nearby hill of rocks. Sakura couldn't believe such a beautiful place could exist out here. She was so eager to get in into the relaxing water that she immediately started to undress before she'd done a thorough search of the area and therefore notice a familiar set of white and black folded clothing lying nearby.

She continued to undress and when she finished and was just about to start getting in when all of a sudden a splash occured before her as something emerged from the water. The something in question turned out to be Gohan emerging from underwater. "Huh!? Gohan!?" exclaimed Sakura. "Huh!? Sakura?" questioned Gohan after quickly clearing the water out of his eyes.

For a brief second both Gohan and Sakura just stared at each other with Sakura standing completely naked on the bank and Gohan with just his bare upper body protruding from the water. It took that one second before they realized what was happening. They both yelped in embarrassment and immediately went to cover themselves. Gohan turned around and submerged his body just about to his shoulders while Sakura simultaniously covered up and turned around and crouched, both of them blushing.

"Gohan!? What the heck are you doing here!? Can't you give a girl some warning?" exclaimed Sakura, turning her head to shoot a glare at him. The first time that a boy sees her naked and it's a boy she barely knows, almost a complete stranger to her. She'd hoped to save herself for her one true love someday, namely Sasuke and now those plans were ruined. To say that she was angry with this would be an understatement.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't know you were there. If I'd known you were there I wouldn't've come up like that. I'm sorry." apologized Gohan. Gohan's honest apology seemed to ebb away most of her anger.

What were you doing in there?" asked Sakura, trying to see if he really didn't try to peep on her. "I was just taking a wash in the hotspring when all of a sudden you showed up. Didn't you know I'd gone to wash?" asked Gohan and then Sakura looked around and saw his discarded clothes nearby and realized that she was the one who'd accidently walked in on him first and that she hadn't paid attention to the signs that he was there.

"Oh! Well, then I guess I'm the one at fault... You were here first and I guess I didn't scope things out properly before I decided to go in. I guess I'm the one who's sorry." said Sakura in shame. They stayed in awkward silence for a few minutes until... "You can still go in and take a bath you know. I promise I won't look." said Gohan while keeping his back to her.

Sakura thought about it for a minute. 'Well, I guess it could still be okay. He certainly seems like pretty honest guy. And not to mention that he's pretty cute in a way and for a kid he has a super muscular body. This could be my one chance to due something like this with a really hot.' thought Sakura with a bit of a blush as she snuck a glance at him.

"Alright, I guess it's okay. But no peeking. I'll be watching you." she said as she then slipped into the hot water and slid in until only her head and shoulders were visible. She then went on to bathe herself while Gohan continued to keep his back turned and they both kept themselves in an awkward silence.

After a while of awkward silence, Sakura had finished her bathing and Gohan had still not turned to even look at her once and she'd been keeping an eye on him the whole time. It was a mystery to her to see a guy not want to look at a naked girl, even a polite guy like him. It was making her curious as to who he really was. He was polite to a fault, honest, pretty handsome enough in her eyes, smart, strong, and from what she saw briefly earlier, a body the likes of which that if she'd hadn't seen it with her own eyes she wouldn't have believed it. 'You know? If any guy in the world had to see me naked first other than Sasuke. I guess I'm glad that it's with a guy like Gohan.' thought Sakura.

"You know Gohan... I hope you don't mind me saying this but, I couldn't help but notice that from what I saw back there you have a very muscular upper body." spoke Sakura, breaking the silence suddenly. "Huh!? What!?" exclaimed a startled Gohan who almost leaped out of the water.

"Your body, I couldn't help noticing how muscular it is. I've never seen it on a guy as young as you before. I find that it's really quite sexy. Do you know that?" asked Sakura. "Well... yeah sorta. I've been told that before." said Gohan modestly. "Then how did a boy like you wind up with such a body? I know some guys who train in extreme amounts of physical exercise and not look even half as good as you." said Sakura.

"Well... I guess that's just the results of the really hard training that I've been doing. Remember that I told you that I've been training since I've been four and a half years old." Gohan sheepishly responded, rubbing his hand on his neck in typical Son family fashion.

"You know, while we're on the subject, what did you think of mine?" asked Sakura, nervously twiddling her fingers. "Excuse me?" questioned Gohan, not quite getting it and hoping that it didn't mean what he thought it meant.

"M-m-my body! What did you think of my body." practically blurted out Sakura. "What!?" exclaimed Gohan. "You're the first boy ever to see me naked and you're a pretty good looking boy from what I can see, and I want to know what you think, how do I stack up?" asked Sakura.

"Well... I can't really judge." Gohan modestly said, trying to be impartial. "Whaaat?... Is it that you've never seen a naked girl before?" playfully teased Sakura.

"No... that's not true, I have, once before but... " Gohan guiltily admitted and paused. "But? But what?" probed Sakura. "But you're... older than she was. It wouldn't be fair. And plus there's sorta this girl back home and..." Gohan explained but he cut himself off as Sakura made the 'O' shape with her mouth. "Ooooh... Oh, oh, oh, oh, OOOh! I get it. You don't have to say anything more." nervously and embarrassingly replied Sakura. They then both settled into an awkward silence once again that would last for several minutes.

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_** And so, here's the next part. That scene with the cream and Sakura yelling at Naruto for it actually came to me in a dream. I'm not kidding, I woke up one morning with approx. that scene coming at the end of my dream and it was so good I just had to include it in my story. It really actually pissed me off in the dream with the way Sakura did that an it always stretched my patience when what she does it in the anime. The way just blames Naruto like that like she always does for no real reason. And so I thought it was a good way for this time to show her and to bring her back to show for once the **_**real**_** horror of what she does and to have her consciously address it with not only herself, but with Naruto. I feel that it's just that the part of herself that attacks Naruto like that is the part that's convinced that she's in love with Sasuke and that she has to prove herself her love like that. But that by this point she's been doing it so long that by this point in the story she just did it without thought of blaming Naruto and made the mistake of doing it in front of someone who instantly realized how wrong it was and called her out on it. And so that's how she now knows how really wrong it is and has addressed it with Naruto. So I thought it was a great way to address it with the Sakura of here and now instead of just Shippuden Sakura. And while this doesn't mean that she's acknowledging Naruto as a possible lover or anything like that, YET. It's just a great way to reaffirm the bond and friendship that she's already formed with Naruto and is just the first step towards her realizing to change things. And so from now on she's just going to be more balanced in how she criticizes both Naruto **_**AND**_** Sasuke.**_

_**And so the hot spring scene is something I had planned for in this story almost from the very beginning. And although Sakura was seen by Gohan naked, even if for a brief flash, it still doesn't mean I'm meaning to 'hook them up'. It's just a funny little perverted scene I came up with for Gohan to see another girl naked. And I just couldn't wait to make it Sakura. And as for Sakura, being seen naked by another boy, even though by accident and by a virtual stranger, is still very embarrassing. But Gohan is so cool and tries to be polite and humble about it it cools her down. The fact that he's a stranger makes it a little more disarming. And so the scene continues until the next chapter... I hope this scene gets a pass as an T Rated instead of a M Rated. I might get canned for mislabeling?**_


	5. Hot Spring Talk

**Chapter :5**

**Hot Spring Talk**

Gohan and Sakura had continued to sit around in silence in the hot water of the hotspring until finally one of them decided to break the ice. "You know? There's something about that Naruto guy that I noticed during the fight earlier today." Gohan suddenly addressed to Sakura. "Huh? What is it?" asked Sakura, a little surprised by the sudden break in silence but nonetheless genuinely curious about the new subject.

"When he stepped in for me against that Kabuto guy I noticed that there was a strange energy coming from him. But not only that but I also noticed that there's something 'different' about him altogether." said Gohan, almost in posing a question at Sakura.

"You know? It is weird. And that's not the first time he's done it I think. It's weird. Back when we were at the academy he was such a prankster and a troublemaker and when he came with us as Team 7 he's such a little idiot. But when he's in battle he seems to just change or transform into this amazing heroic-like person and comes up with these ways to just end up saving the day. And when he seems all alone like he was with me a while ago, he can seem like the most sensitive and hurt individual in the world. It's like he's a different person for each situation." said Sakura, looking deep in thought and almost thinking out loud as she recalled all the situations and memories she'd had with Naruto.

Gohan for his part just starred up at the night sky and looked at the stars in deep thought. "Sometimes people have different sides or faces of themselves that they show for different people or situations. Like the faces you show for your lover are different from the faces you put on for your friends or from the face you put on to the public. Sometimes it depends on the situation as to what side your gonna see from somebody. A face you hide behind and a face you show for real." Gohan said, thinking of how his relationship with Videl and with other people were different based on how he acted around them and how he could correlate that with this situation.

Sakura was amazed by how indepth Gohan sounded with that when he said it so she curiously scooted up and joined Gohan next to him as he continued to look up. At first Sakura just looked at him questioningly, wondering what and why he was looking at but then she also looked up into the starry sky. And for that moment it became almost like quite a little bonding moment for them as they were just two kids sharing a hotspring and looking up at the night sky in reflection.

"The stars are really beautiful tonight. But I guess what you said was really beautiful and meaningful too. I mean I've never really thought of it like that before. But it does seem to make a large amount of sense. I guess that the way Naruto and Sasuke are with each other could also be attributed to that." said Sakura as she turned to Gohan.

"Yeah, I guess... They certainly are a pair, heh heh! But speaking of those two, there's something that I've noticed that's been bothering me. Like that Sasuke guy, I mean what's his deal?" Gohan pointed out, slowly turning to look Sakura in the eye. "What's his deal? What do you mean 'his deal'?" asked Sakura confused. "He always seems so broody, cold and sullen. He doesn't seem to get along with much of anyone. I wonder what's his problem?" Gohan asked, clarifying his earlier question and showing genuine concern. Sakura lowered her eyes and looked away in a saddened sort of way.

"His problem is that when he was younger Sasuke saw his whole CLAN killed overnight one night by his older brother." solemnly answered Sakura. "His WHOLE clan!? His older BROTHER!?" asked Gohan bewildered. "Yeah... Hard to believe isn't it? The Uchiha Clan were considered the elite clan of the village and Sasuke's older brother was apparently considered the greatest genius and prodigy of the clan. And even though Sasuke is considered a great genius and graduated as the top student of our class at the academy it still doesn't compare to his brothers achievements. His brother graduated at an earlier age and unlocked his powers at an earlier age than Sasuke or anyone else could. But now with the murdering of his clan Sasuke is out to try to surpass his older brother and kill him to avenge his clan." summarised Sakura. 'Man! And I thought _I_ had it rough with my childhood.' silently thought Gohan.

"Heh, you know, now that I think about it, I guess he does sorta remind me of him and now after hearing this story, they're more alike in more ways than one." Gohan said to himself, thinking about how much Sasuke reminded him of Vegeta and not realizing that he was speaking out loud. "Reminds you of who?" asked Sakura suspiciously.

"Oh, just someone I know, just forget about it... You know what? You keep mentioning this academy of yours. I'm interested to know what it's like. What do they teach you over there?" posed Gohan, changing the topic. "What? The academy? It's the ninja academy at our village that teaches us all about how to become ninja. It's the primary education system of our village. But you wouldn't want to be interested in that?" answered Sakura, quite bashfully at the end. "I do! I do! I come from a home schooling background so anything about education elsewhere is quite fascinating to me. Especially if they're teaching you combat arts. I can't imagine what the homework on that would've been like." said Gohan, looking quite animately curious, like a child waiting to hear a grandfather's stories.

"Well, the homework wasn't all that much of a deal I guess. Heh heh... But since you're earnest about this thing I guess I could tell you a bit about it. I don't know where to start but, they taught us all sorts of things over there like ninja history, chakra, ninja tools, academics and also fighting styles. Teaching grades goes from ages 6 up to 12 and if you're considered good enough they can promote you ahead and straight out of the academy early." explained Sakura.

"Wow! It sounds like a place I would like to visit someday." said Gohan. "Well, I don't mean to brag, but I was the top Kunoichi in academics at the academy. I graduated top of the class because of my smarts and all round knowledge about the basics." proudly boasted Sakura. "Now that you mention it... I did sorta notice during the fight that while your a strong fighter, your fighting style looked a bit too basic and bare bones." mentioned Gohan, noticing those critical things of a martial artist and mentioned it almost off hand, not realizing what he'd done.

Sakura was about to protest, feeling a bit insulted at having her fighting style criticized but then something else seemed to click in her mind. 'Wait a minute? How did he notice my fighting style in the middle of all that? All he was doing the whole time was standing around...' thought Sakura as she trailed off as she then remembered seeing him in the middle of the battle with weird eye movement that seemed to dart around all over the place.

"Hey wait a minute! That's right! Now I remember! I caught a glimpse of you during the battle with you having some of weird kind of freaky fast eye movement." remarked Sakura. "Well.. I... uh..." Gohan sputtered, bewildered and tongue tied at being caught. "Now I get it! You were watching us and following each of our fights individually with your eyes! But Why? How? How would you even do that?" questioned Sakura with an accusatory finger.

"Well... You remember that training I was talking about earlier? Well it's sorta a part of that. I've been trained to follow really high speed combat with my eyes." admitted Gohan timidly. "Wow! You must be a really strong martial artist if you follow speeds like those!" said Sakura, amazed and appreciating a new found level of respect for Gohan's abilities. "Gee, thanks. Nice of you to say so." thanked Gohan bashfully rubbing the back of his head once again.

"Well I guess that's enough time spent. It's getting late." said Sakura suddenly as she then started moving off to get to the other bank to leave. "Alright, I guess it is getting kinda late. And don't worry, I won't peek." said Gohan as he turned his back to make sure he didn't see her getting out of the water. "Oh! And that reminds me. Before I forget, you never did answer my question earlier." slyly said Sakura as she stopped moving in the water and turned back.

"What!? What are you talking about?" said Gohan, playing dumb and hoping it wasn't the question he thought it was. "You never really gave me a real answer to my question about what you thought of my body. Honestly, it's not all that hard to answer is it?" posed Sakura. "Well... I... uh..." once again stammered Gohan, blushing. "Come on! Don't be shy. I don't really care for those 'reasons' you gave me earlier. I just want your honest opinion." reassured Sakura.

Gohan then thought back to the mental picture of her he'd captured out of his peripheral vision due to he'd been looking at her face at the time and then remembered her body. Her small early budding breasts, her slim milkshake-like looking figure and her slightly on the small side prepubescent looking nether region. Gohan blushed at the thought of her.

"Well... you're very very pretty. You're the most (Gulp) 'grown' girl I've ever seen so I guess I should say the most beautiful. You're very beautiful." timidly and blushingly said Gohan. Sakura wanted to jump up and scream in triumph on the inside at hearing those compliments from Gohan. To think that an incredibly cute boy (at least in her opinion.) would find her body attractive let alone beautiful made her finally feel a little confident in her figure. But although that was what she felt on the inside, she didn't show it on the outside as only a little blush appeared on her face.

"T-Thank you Gohan... although I would've liked some more details I'm glad you could at least answer me honestly. Thank you. But I gotta be going now. I really enjoyed our little talk of ours... " said Sakura before she left. She then got out of the hotspring and re-dressed herself all the while Gohan kept his back turned. At that Sakura said her final goodbye and left, leaving a blushing and confused Gohan in the hotspring, left to think about the whole strange affair.

The next morning, Gohan woke up late, much later than the others after having slept in. He'd gotten back from the hotspring late and had to come up with a pretty flimsy excuse to cover up what'd really happened. But the others, while they didn't really believe him, nonetheless decided to buy it regardless. But when Gohan had woken up this morning he found that the camp was deserted except for him. He reasoned that they probably were out early morning scouting or something and paid it no mind. He decided to get in some training this morning while he had this unexpected opening. So he switched his clothes with a training uniform he'd brought along just in case. It was one just like his dad's. He then went off to find a suitable training spot and hopefully maybe catch some breakfast on the way.

However, unknown to Gohan, Team 7 had actually gone out to some early morning sparring practice this morning and were now set up in the very same large clearing, almost a grassy field that Gohan now coincidentally decided to make his training spot. Gohan walked into the field and unwittingly stumbled into view of Naruto and Sakura in the middle of sparring with Sasuke observing and Kakashi lounging around with his book on a treetop supervising. Gohan's accidental arrival put a stop to all activity and drew all attention to him.

Woah! Gohan? What's he doing here? For that matter, what's with that outfit and those _arms_?' jealously thought Naruto.

'Hn, looks like this guy might actually be more interesting after all.' snidely thought Sasuke.

'Well, it looks like Gohan is finally awake. And looking sooooo good in that outfit.' blushingly thought Sakura.

It was at that point that Naruto ran up to Gohan with the other two walking in tow. "Hey Gohan, you finally awake? What are you doing here and what's with that outfit?" asked Naruto in his usual energetic self. "Yeah, who would've pegged you for looking so strong." said Sasuke as he and Sakura came up. "Well... I... Huhhhh, guess this is just a side of me I chose to show today." nervously said Gohan, scratching the back of his head with a big nervous grin on his face.

"Oh! That's like from that saying you said last night." recognized Sakura, not realizing what she'd just slipped up.

"Last night? What saying last night? He didn't talk to us last night so when did he... " cut off Naruto as the realization dawned on him. Sakura covered her mouth as if she had a hot tongue as she realized what she'd let slip by. Naruto started shakingly pointing an accusatory finger at Gohan. "Wait Naruto, it's not what you think." tried to assuage Gohan. Sakura on the other hand, lowered her eyes in shame as she could see the writing on the wall. "I guess there's no use in hiding it now Gohan. Naruto, last night me and Gohan shared the hotspring together." shamefully admitted Sakura. "You WHAT!?" screamed Naruto.

"Now Naruto, it was an accident. He didn't mean for it to happen like that. He was already inside the hotspring and when I went to go in he just surfaced in front of me and well..." Sakura went to defend. "He saw you NAKED?" screamed incredulously Naruto.

"Now Naruto, like she said it was an accident. I wouldn't have surfaced right then if I'd known she was right there and all naked like that. And it was only for a split second and I immediately closed my eyes thereafter. I didn't want to see her in that way and I kept my eyes to myself the rest of the night. She still needed to take a bath and I was still using the hotspring so we shared it and we talked a little and that's all." pleaded Gohan, trying to explain the situation but Naruto didn't seem to be listening too well.

"YOU SAW HER NAKED!" jealously raged Naruto. To say that Naruto was jealous was the understatement of understatements. He was furious, the girl he loved was seen naked by another guy before he could. He's hoped one day that he could be the one guy to have that honor someday but those dreams were now dashed and by a virtual stranger no less.

The red slitted eyes formed on his face and faster and more powerful than anyone thought he could move he went to punch Gohan in the face. But Gohan easily managed to catch the punch which then let him flip him away. Naruto landed on his side and skid to a halt. "I don't want to fight you Naruto." said Gohan with his hand out in a motion to say 'stop' and with his face looking _fighting_ serious.

Both Sasuke and Sakura cleared the way to let them some room. Naruto got back up with his slitted red eyes gone but nonetheless staring back with angrily determined blue eyes. "Well that's too bad." defiantly said Naruto as he went for his signature handsign, the crossed 'T' for the Shadow Clone Jutsu and everyone knew that things had just gotten serious.

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_** And so I had the scene between Gohan and Sakura in the hot spring be a little more philosophical between the two. I wanted it to be a more bonding kind of talk between them as friends. It's just that it just so happens when their naked in a hot spring together. I had to find **_**deep**_** within their characters to find any real commonality with them as people. But I think I did. And then whole Sakura getting her answer about what Gohan thinks of her naked? I would think that a girl like her with such obvious insecurities about her body would want to find out what exactly the 'other side' would have to say about it. If she was ugly or not. And with no other anonymous or impartial judges around I think she would feel somewhat okay with sharing that with a nice guy who happens to be 'hot' in her books who also doubles as a total stranger. There's something quite liberating in revealing your inner most secrets with a stranger, no? But remember, this was still just a talk between friends. Just to a more intimate way.**_

_**And finally, a match for the ages is about to start. A match that I've been dreaming of for a long time. Let's find out what happens when Gohan fights Naruto next chapter...**_


	6. Gohan vs Naruto and Sasuke

**Chapter :6**

**Gohan vs. Naruto and Sasuke**

Naruto started off with summoning about a dozen shadow clones and charging them head on at Gohan. They began attacking Gohan with surrounding moves and combination attacks but Gohan was always two steps ahead and began to make quick work of the clones. Although he was moving 'slow' by his standards, Gohan deliberately slowed himself down as much as he could in order to look more 'normal' with his moves but he was still pretty quick to the others.

Meanwhile Gohan was fighting Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were hidden away behind some bushes nearby watching the fight. 'Oh no, this is terrible! Gohan and Naruto are fighting! Naruto doesn't know how awesomely strong Gohan really is! And Gohan can't stop fighting against Naruto without hurting him! And Naruto won't stop for anything. They should stop this! STOP IT!' worriedly thought Sakura.

But Sasuke on the other hand was having different thoughts about the fight. "Tch, that dobe, what's he doing attacking him head on like that? Doesn't he know how strong his opposition is? Although, it does look like that Gohan kid's unusually very strong." said Sasuke as a small unusual grin that Sakura had only really seen a few times appeared on his face. It was the smirk of the growing thrill of a possible challenge.

Meantime, Gohan had just finished off the last of the clones as they poofed away. Keeping up the attack, Naruto himself came charging in with the burning red eyes from before, apparently the anger of having his attack so humiliatingly easily destroyed pushed him over the edge a bit and now he was using the Nine-Tailed-Fox power. Naruto attacked wildly with twisting and turning claws from mostly midway in the air like a wild ranging animal.

The ferocity of the attacks and style unnerved Gohan for a bit at first but once he saw what it was, he saw that he could easily dodge it. That style of attack was not unlike the one he himself once used against Piccolo as he recalled from a vague memory of one night in his early days of training. So Gohan could see the attacks coming and easily stay one step ahead.

Eventually, Naruto's fox power began to give way and exhaust itself as Naruto's anger began to give way more and more with each swing as his anger no longer rested in what happened between Gohan and Sakura but instead lie in just simply wanting to best Gohan. Gohan saw the eyes go back to blue and immediately realized what was happening and took advantage of it.

Gohan used the afterimage technique just as Naruto went to punch his face and Naruto just walked right into it. Just as Naruto began to wonder what had happened and looked around, Gohan fazed in in front of him and grabbed his arm to spin him around and toss him to the ground near the other side of the field.

'Woah... This guy... is... really strong.' thought Sasuke as he watched the fight with balled up hands which tightened with both apprehension and excitement. 'Woah... What is this guy? He's really super strong! What was it that he did back there? Is he just as fast as Bushy-Brow? Or was it just some kind of Genjutsu?' asked Naruto to himself in his head as he got back up and wiped his chin.

"Is that it? Is that all you've got? Heh, I was kinda expecting more from you Naruto." taunted Gohan as he stalkingly walked up him but doing it more to encourage Naruto.

"It's not over. Not by a long shot! I've got way more fight in me. I'll never give up!" determinedly shot back Naruto as he made the crossed fingers symbol and poofed into existence enough Narutos to fill up the field and surround Gohan.

'Woah! Again I'm impressed. To think that he could make so many of them. If only Tien were here to see this.' thought Gohan as he looked on at the horde of orange surrounding him but didn't let his 'serious' look falter. Instead he just stood there in the standing ready stance and just tightened his fists at his sides and tightened his muscles to prepare for the coming action.

Naruto gave his clones the attack order and they all went to swarm on Gohan. But Gohan, using his superior speed and power systematically knocked out all the immediate clones that were attacking him and then went to work on the rest of the horde. Naruto couldn't believe how fast and how strongly Gohan was cutting a swath through his clones and he also noticed how Gohan was able to see attacks from his clones from his blind sides and even seemingly the back of his head as like when he double kicked two clones from his backside without ever looking at them.

'Is this guy like a Hyuga? Can he see 360 degrees?' Naruto asked himself as he observed from the back as he saw Gohan literally cut a giant swath through the army with a large corridor of poofs and flying clones.

After the ranks of the clone army started to get real thin, the real Naruto leaped into the air and poofed into the air a bunch more clones. "Take this! Multi-Shadowclone Shuriken Jutsu!" called out Naruto as the clones all threw dozens of shurikens each to make seemingly hundreds of shurikens head for Gohan.

But Gohan just stood there in the middle of the field and held out his hand palm out to say 'stop' and all the shuriken stopped in midair as if frozen in time.

Gohan then closed his hand and opened it again to signal the shuriken to go back and they all launched right back at the Narutos. The airborne Narutos tried to cover up to protect themselves but they were all shredded by the shuriken and all poofed away as well as the remaining ground force which were hit by the attack. All poofed away except for the original who was still in midair.

Gohan took advantage of this opening and flew into the air and swatted Naruto with a backhand choping strike to send Naruto flying to the ground so hard he created a small column of dust and when the dust cleared it revealed Naruto lying prone and motionless in a small crater.

"Hmmm, this guy... really _is_ something interesting. It looks like I've found someone actually worthy." said Sasuke to himself with a small grin of excitement on his face. "Sasuke?" wondered Sakura shortly before Sasuke shunshined away and disappeared.

Meanwhile, Gohan gently landed back on the firm ground and regrettably started assessing his damage. "Well, that outta keep you down for a while. I'm sorry Naruto. I really didn't..." but Gohan was cut off when he sensed something coming from behind and wirled into action.

He turned around to find a giant fireball heading straight towards him. Gohan was surprised by this and he barely dodged it by fazing away at the last second. The Fireball Jutsu impacted the ground harmlessly at Gohan's former position and then he reappeared a few meters away to the left of the smoldering crater.

'Phew, that was close... I wonder...' thought Gohan but his train of thought was broken when he found himself dodging a kick to his head from Sasuke who'd ambushed him and had now gotten in close to following up his earlier attack with some Taijutsu.

Sasuke was doing all sorts of clever, tactical moves as he attempted to outsmart Gohan in a tactical display of Taijutsu but Gohan blocked, dodged and otherwise stay one step ahead as they engaged in a furious hand-to-hand combat.

Although Gohan was taking it easy and otherwise goading Sasuke, Sasuke was still able to keep up and pretty much block the few counters Gohan sent his way. Gohan was nonetheless impressed with his fighting and could tell that he was a real talented tactical sort of fighter.

But finally Gohan had enough and used his speed to faze out of a kick Sasuke sent and then fazed in and out to the back and sides of Sasuke to confuse him before finally catching him off guard with a 'soft' kick that pushed him away. Sasuke however quickly regained his footing and both combatants were left staring off at each other.

'Woah! First Naruto jumps in and now Sasuke jumps in to the fight. Fighting to defend my virtue!' thought Sakura with hearts in her eyes, but the truth was far removed from her delusional train of thought.

"You know Sasuke, I sorta expected this from Naruto but not from you. I never thought _you_ would jump in to fight for Sakura's 'honor'." said Gohan while seriously staring him down. Though Gohan could easily see what the real reason was, he used it as a sort of taunt to get at the real reason out of Sasuke and _boy_ did it work.

"Don't misunderstand things! Don't put me in with what that idiot Naruto did. I couldn't care less about _that_. Look, I'm here because you've proven strong enough for me to want to challenge myself against to prove my strength and nothing more." replied Sasuke, clearly ticked off by Gohan's assertion.

"So this is just a test? A way to see how strong you are? Can't say I'm surprised at that coming from you. Guys like you always seem to fight for their pride or egoes. And although I can admire you for that, right now all I can feel for you is disgust for your selfish decision. But if that's the way you want it then I won't deprive you." said Gohan with disgust in his eyes as he went into a fighting stance (Sorta like a cross between Goku's stance against Vegeta in their original fight and Neji's stance when he goes into the Eight-Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms. Kinda more like Neji's only with clawed fists.) and Sasuke went into his own. 'I have to remember that this guy is pretty fast. Either that or he has some trick to teleport like that. But either with speed or with jutsu I'll be able to see what tricks he uses with my...'

"Sharingan!" called out Sasuke as he activated his clan's famous bloodline trait. 'His eyes just changed. Those are some strange eyes. That's certainly a new power. I'd better watch it. Something tells me that this just became much more difficult.' thought Gohan as he looked at the now red tomoed eyes of Sasuke. And at that, at the drop of a hat, Sasuke charged. 'Whatever tricks he's up to I'll see it!' repeated Sasuke like a mantra in his head as he charged furiously down the field at Gohan.

Gohan and Sasuke once again engaged in furious hand-to-hand combat but this time things were a little different. Sasuke's Sharingan allowed him to see Gohan's moves that he'd hadn't been able to see earlier and now he was able to defend against Gohan's counters and stay much more easily on par with Gohan and even hold a slight advantage.

'Huh!? What is this? It's like he's able to predict my moves and be ready in position before they hit even though I know I'm using faster movements. Is that because of those eyes of his?' Gohan wondered to himself as Sasuke continued to dodge and/or block his attacks. But although Sasuke was using his Sharingan to advantage, Gohan was also still able to see everything that Sasuke did as if it was in slow motion as his eyes and experience were still adjusted to far, _far_ higher speeds as he was still only indulging Sasuke.

But then Sasuke finally caught Gohan with a mistake when Gohan miscalculated by overcommitting to block by using the 'X' crossed position with both arms to protect from a right hand punch. But Sasuke instead opened his palm at the last second and grabbed both arms of Gohan and then pulled them so that Gohan was pulled to the left which had a waiting left punch coming for him. Things seemed to move in slow motion as the punch came ever closer to Gohan's surprised face. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights as he realised that he'd actually been caught and that with his hands occupied he couldn't do a thing about it even though he could see it coming. Sasuke was relishing the moment as he'd finally caught Gohan with something.

But then, just as his punch appoached those last few inches to Gohan's surprised face, he fazed out and vanished. He then reappeared somewhere further off to the right some distance away looking a little winded but that was more from the look of escaping a close call than actual physical tiredness from the maneuver.

'What!? I _had_ him! How did he escape from that?' exclaimed Sasuke in his head.

'Man! That one was close. I had to use some of my actual speed in order to avoid that. If I hadn't used some of my real speed I wouldn't of gotten out of there in time.' thought Gohan as he caught his breath from the close call.

But meanwhile on the other hand, Sasuke seemed lost in space from what'd happened. The memory seemed to replay in is mind in slow motion as he tried to figure it out. 'Up until that point I could see him. My Sharingan could see him. But then he just vanished? How could he do that? Is he just that fast? He would have to be faster than Lee to do that. Or is it some sort of Time-Space jutsu? I mean first he was there and then he wasn't? No, it couldn't be a Time-Space jutsu otherwise the Sharingan would've indicated it. He's just that physically fast? If he could move that fast then he could've gotten out of it at any time he wished. Is he just playing with me?' Sasuke asked himself in his head.

'Those eyes, what did call them? Uh, Sharingan or something? Is some real dangerous stuff. They seem to allow him to predict movements that are ahead of the normal line of sight. I'd better keep myself on my toes.' thought Gohan, assessing his opponent while he regulated his breathing in readying for the next round.

But meanwhile, Kakashi who'd been observing the fight casually with his Sharingan eye unfurled who was now standing up, stunned with amazement at the fight's last moves. 'Wow, so this is Gohan's fighting ability? Amazing! That last move was so fast I couldn't even see it, even with my Sharingan.' thought Kakashi, totally amazed.

"Hey Sasuke! Those eyes of yours, the Sharingan you called it? They seem to be connected with giving you special added powers. They give you the ability to foresee your opponents moves ahead of time right?" Gohan addressed to Sasuke. That call out seemed to break Sasuke out from his reverie and he then sent a scowl at Gohan.

'He seems to have figured out the Sharingan after only seeing it once! He's not only strong but smart too. But no matter what I can't lose! I still hold the advantage with the Sharingan. And even if he is holding back most of his speed to play with me it'll be his mistake!' thought Sasuke as he charged ahead once again.

Gohan and Sasuke battled once again with Sasuke chasing around Gohan, but this time it was different as Gohan now knew at what speeds to go at. Every punch and kick Sasuke tried to employ was read and blocked or dodged as if the Sharingan was reversed on him. It was because Gohan had now figured out at what approximate speeds Sasuke's Sharingan could follow movements and he used his faster eyesight to read Sasuke's moves while still moving at slower speeds himself, until the last second when he would spring to his higher speeds and catch whatever Sasuke threw. 'How is he doing this?' thought Sasuke frustratingly.

"You're eyes may be powerful and be able to follow my movements to a certain extent but even they have a limit to the speeds they can catch. If your opponent uses speeds faster than your eyes can follow then they are useless. All I did was figure out how fast your eyes can follow and then adjust to move faster than that." braggingly explained Gohan while they fought and then shortly thereafter he kicked Sasuke away.

As Sasuke skidded on the ground defeated, Naruto came back from apparently being knocked out and wildly attacked Gohan again. He had been recovering from his earlier impact on the ground all the while Gohan and Sasuke had been fighting. Naruto was however swiftly dealt with by Gohan and Naruto found himself skidding on his back on the ground until he ground to a halt right next to where Sasuke was laying.

"Man, this guy is too much." complained Naruto as he groggily got himself back up. "*Groans* For once, you're right dope." admitted Sasuke as he too tried to get up alongside Naruto. "*Groans* Hey, listen Sasuke, as much as I hate you you bastard, but this guy is too strong for me to fight alone and you too as not even you could do anything against this guy. So why don't we team up and take him together?" proposed Naruto as they both got up. "As much as the idea of fighting together with you sickens me it seems that we don't have much of choice if we're gonna beat this guy. So you just keep out of my way so as not to slow me down loser and I'll keep out of yours." agreed Sasuke as they now stood side-by-side ready to fight together against a greater common opponent.

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_** And so here's how I think if Gohan would take on both Naruto and Sasuke individually. Well not **_**real**_** realistically, but as close as I could get while letting Naruto and Sasuke do their thing.**_

_**But remember, this is **_**still**_** just Gohan holding back **_**A LOT**_**. He's just fighting defensively because he doesn't want to really hurt them because he considers them his friends and plus he just wants to see for himself what their really made of, individually for himself, and how it is to fight ninja and their tactics as that's part of his original mission for the Z-Fighters.**_

_**And so that's why he's holding back from retaliating and just wiping them out with his powers. He wants them to keep coming with more powers for him to see. Plus I also hope you enjoyed that little analogy I made between the fighting style of Naruto powered by Nine-Tails chakra and Gohan in his earlier 'wild' type feral style he used against Piccolo in that one episode of the anime. You know? The one where he transformed for the second time?**_

_**And also, if your wondering about Naruto revealing his powers in front of Sakura and Sasuke? They've already seen this limited stuff before when Naruto attacked Orochimaru in the Forest of Death. So they already **_**know**_** about this power even though their still mystified of it. By this point they just accept it as part of Naruto's 'thing' and leave it at that. Same thing goes for that moment in the earlier chapter with Kabuto and the gang.**_

_**And so, I took the advice, and tried editing the chapter to look more spaced between paragraphs as requested. It may not be perfect, and I won't change the chapters previous. But it's the best that I can do for now. But if you guys want it, maybe I'll go back and redo some of the chapters later? But for now, I hope this is a marked improvement and that you enjoy that it's easier to read.**_


	7. Naruto and Sasuke Team up

**Chapter: 7**

**Naruto and Sasuke Team Up**

With Naruto and Sasuke now working together they started by charging together and engaging Gohan in a two on one taijutsu battle. They tried attacking with each other simultaniously but Gohan was so strong that he easily fended them off with one arm each. _(A/N: Think like what Raditz did with Goku and Piccolo.)_ So when that didn't work they tried switching it up with them alternating with each other with Sasuke attacking with with his refined techniques and then Naruto coming in and attack with his wild, awkward style. But that didn't work either as Gohan already knew how they fought individually and so would adjust to the fighting style accordingly. Pretty soon Naruto and Sasuke had to fall back and try to regroup and come up with a new plan of attack.

"Man, what is this guy? Even attacking him together won't work." said Naruto in frustration. "Then maybe we have to put it to him another way." suggested Sasuke, looking over in Naruto's direction as if he knew Naruto knew what he was talking about. Naruto looked over and realized what Sasuke was getting at and nodded in non-verbal acknowledgement. "Right, you hit him high, I'll hit him low." replied Naruto as they then went to execute their plan.

Naruto formed his infamous handsign and summoned about a dozen Shadow Clones and charged straight at Gohan. But it was a ploy as just when Gohan thought that Naruto would recklessly attack him again, about half of the Shadow Clones dropped down and went for slidding kicks in succession. "U-ZU-MA-KI!" chanted out the clones as they went for one of Naruto's signature attacks the Naruto Uzumaki Barrage.

But the attack didn't work as Gohan saw the moves coming and when the clones went for the kicks Gohan simply jumped his feet out of the way at the last second so they would miss and then used the following up kicks as a springboard to launch himself into the air.

But up there, Sasuke was waiting for him as he shunshined right next to Gohan. "Lion's Barrage!" called out Sasuke, calling out his own attack. But Gohan was once again too fast at reading their attack patterns and used his forearm to block the first kick and then twisted around and used his elbow to block the second kick from above in an incredible display of defensive maneuver. But then that wasn't enough as Gohan used the momentum from the blocked kicks to launch himself at the ground and then punched the ground destabilizing it and creating massive upturns in the ground. _(A/N: Think what Sakura did in Shippuden against Kakashi during the second bell test.)_

The attack was right in the middle of the clones which caused all of them to go poof and one of the upturns caused the original Naruto to be springboarded into some bushes. Gohan then stood up straight and waited for the next attack but it didn't come as Sasuke was now gone too, having apparently gone into hiding somewhere among the trees and bushes. Apparently the ninja were now going to patiently wait for their next strike and Gohan had no choice but to patiently wait along with them.

The wind blowed across the field as Gohan waited patiently in the middle of it. Closing his eyes and using his "other" senses to detect where his ninja opposition was. A small smile crept on his face as it wasn't hard to find them. They may be good at hiding, but they didn't know how to hide their energy signatures very well.

Soon a stream of kunai came whizzing in for Gohan's head from the direction of what he detected to be Naruto's position. With quick reaction time, he tilted his head at the last second and dodged the first two or three kunai and then with fast hand speed he grabbed the next kunai from out of the air and used it to block the rest of the kunai before flinging it dead center to cancel out the last projectile which was a shuriken.

Once Naruto's attack was stopped next up came kunai coming diagonally from the treeline to the left from Sasuke's position. Gohan easily went to dodge these kunai by tilting his head again until he saw the middle kunai with a piece of paper with the kanji for "explosive" written on it come up right by his head. Gohan barely had time to figure out what it meant before he fazed out at super speed and get out of there before it exploded. It looked as though his ninja opponents were using the cover of the trees to patiently shoot at him from long range.

But no sooner had Gohan figured this out when all of a sudden came rushing in from the treeline about 30 or 50 Narutos. The lead Naruto clones surrounded him and lunged at him from all sides and were just about to reach him when... 'Naruto... Don't you know by now that a frontal attack with that technique won't work on me? Or unless... He does know! And this is just a... DISTRACTION!' thought Gohan in panic as he looked up just in time to see Sasuke appear above and to the left.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" called out Sasuke as he shot multiple fireballs that combined to engulf Gohan and destroy the surrounding clones in a giant pire of flame. But just to finish things off Sasuke went for one more added attack. "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" called out Sasuke as he added an extra large ball of fire to the added flame. Sasuke then landed next to the real Naruto to look at their handywork.

"Jeez Sasuke! Don't you think that's a bit much?" asked Naruto worried that they might have killed their newfound friend. Sasuke didn't respond as he just looked quietly at the sheet of flames. But then they heard a particular droning sound and went aghast as the fire seemed to slowly 'rinse' away revealing in spots a yellow energy-like 'shell' underneath. Eventually the flames parted and inside was revealed Gohan with his arms in cross guard in front of his face and surrounded by a yellow round protective energy shield.

What... What... What is he!?" questioned Sasuke, stunned as he looked on at the amazing spectacle. Just then Gohan lowered cross guard and revealed a deadly serious and almost an angry face shortly before he forcefully uncrossed his arms and blasted away the shield. The energy it resulted blew away the remaining flames and blew back both Naruto and Sasuke back into the woods.

Somehow both Naruto and Sasuke managed to right themselves and find cover behind the trunks of trees next to one another. "Man! *pant*pant*pant* This guy really _is_ too much! *pant* I've never seen anything like it." said a panting and frustrated Naruto. "*pant* I know what you mean. He's almost impossible to crack. He's faster than Lee. He's as strong or stronger than Lady Tsunade. It's as if he has the Byakugan with the way he can sense things coming around him. He's also got the ability to project an energy shield like the Hyuga's Rotation but without the drawback of having to spin around. His eyesight is so fast that even when I'm using the Sharingan it feels as if I'm fighting the Sharingan. He's at least as intelligent as Neji or myself and maybe even Shikamaru and plus he said that he's been training and fighting almost all his life so he's more experienced than all of us put together. It's like he's made up of everyone's abilities and rolled all into one." summarised Sasuke, grinding his teeth.

"Man! Is he invincible or something? How are we going to beat something like that? Doesn't he have any weakspots?" asked Naruto despairingly. "I don't know, but we've got to find some way to get through his defences, specifically that energy shield of his." answered Sasuke, trying to think of a way through their dilemma.

"So what do we do now?" asked Naruto. "I'm not sure, but whatever we do I'm starting to think it'll take lethal force from us to take him down." said Sasuke, all the while looking at the arm he usually uses for his Chidori. Naruto recognized this and along with the look in Sasuke's eyes. "You've got a plan?" asked Naruto, fully knowing what Sasuke was leaning towards. "But I don't think I could get close enough to him to do it alone. If only you had something that could keep up with me." said Sasuke, looking to Naruto. "I think I've got just the trick we need." replied Naruto with a scary grin. Although Sasuke didn't know exactly what Naruto meant by that, he was willing to trust in whatever new technique Naruto had up his sleeve. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

While Naruto and Sasuke were in the trees, Gohan was waiting for them on the outside. He was waiting and wondering what they were going to come at him with and he didn't have to wait long. 'Cause Sasuke and Naruto came rushing out of the bushes side-by-side holding what Gohan recognized as some types of energy attacks in their hands. Naruto's being a ball of swirling energy and Sasuke's being a handful of lightning that sounded like birds chirping. Naruto and Sasuke were attacking together with their ultimate attacks the Chidori and the Rasengan.

But although Gohan didn't know the names of these techniques at the time he nonetheless could recognize the danger. A staredown of epic proportions was occuring as Naruto and Sasuke barreled down at top speed with their ultimate attacks in tow at the also intense look of the experienced and awaiting defendant, Gohan.

But when Naruto and Sasuke finally reached their target they were surprised to find Gohan countering their attack by grabing each of their wrists with super fast speed and then deftly using their momentum to throw them away to where they landed in the back. Both Naruto and Sasuke landed with their hands still holding their attacks and landing almost side-by-side and their attacks resulting in a small dust cloud along with a conjoining pair of small craters.

"Hey you idiot! Watch where you're going! You almost hit me back there! And you totally screwed up our attack!" screamed Sasuke as he lifted up out of the hole. "Me!? What about you!? You're the one who screwed up!" countered back Naruto. Gohan could only look on and sigh, along with the rest of Team 7 who were looking on as the two went about bickering among themselves.

"Hey, if you guys wanna continue arguing then maybe we can stop this fight here and now." called out Gohan, honestly hopeful that they would take the suggestion and they could all leave the fight as that. But unfortunately it only served to break out the two from their bickering and forced them to turn back at the task at hand. "What!? No way! We can't leave our fight unresolved." protested Naruto. "I'm sorry to say this, but this fight is already finished. Although you fought very well, both of you, your techniques, attacks and fighting styles were all surprising and they had me going a few times and especially those last attacks you used on me. Those attacks looked pretty powerful and they could even have done some real damage but now, the fight is over. You guys had better give up. I'd rather not have to resort to knocking you guys out." pleaded Gohan.

"No way! We'd never give up on this fight! Even if you can knock us out you'll have to before we ever give up. We won't stop until we've beaten you!" defiantly shot back Naruto. "Heh, although I don't often agree with the dobe, this time I do. You said that you could knock us out? Well let's see you try it! Because we're not stopping until either we win or we're lying on the ground defeated. Either way we're ending this fight. Now show us how you'll end this!" determindly said Sasuke as they then both stood back up and got into position to defend themselves.

"Very well, I guess I have no choice but to show you. Like THIS!" shouted Gohan, as he just disappeared. He rapidly reappeared only to give a knee to Sasuke's gut launching him back first into a tree on the other side of the far side of the field. The impact knocked the breath out of Sasuke and left him in a state of semi-consciousness, knocking him out for he rest of he fight.

Naruto was next as, before any warning he receive a hard punch to the gut that sent him slidding down on the ground on his back and leaving a trail of churned up earth in his wake. While Gohan felt sure that that would've laid him out, Naruto surprised him by stirring and beginning to get back up.

'What? That punch should've had more then enough power to knock him out. I put some real effort into that punch. This guy is a tough one no doubt about that. No average human and even some above average humans shouldn't be able to get back up from a punch like that.' thought Gohan, surprised by Naruto's resilience. "*pant* Is that...*pant* all you've got?" taunted Naruto defiantly. "You're a tough one I'll give you that. But even someone like you can only take so much." said Gohan as he then proceeded to pound away at Naruto one knockdown after the other.

But time and again no matter how Gohan put him down Naruto would still get back up. After what must've been the fifth or sixth time he'd knocked down Naruto Gohan was beginning to see something in Naruto's eyes as he got back up. There was determined fire in those deep blue orbs that Gohan could only've recognized that he'd seen before in one other individual's eyes. In fact he could've sworn he saw his father, Goku's determined image in behind Naruto as he stood defiantly panting.

"Come on... Let's go!" egged on Naruto. "Naruto, why don't you give up?" asked Gohan curiously. "I'll never give up! I never give up until I win. That's my nindo. My ninja way! I'll never give in until I've beaten you!" responded Naruto determindedly. Seemingly satisfied with his answer, Gohan smiled. "Very well then Naruto, you win. I give up." said Gohan smilingly. This sent Naruto, and along with everyone else who were watching, reeling at Gohan's sudden decision.

* * *

**Author's thoughts:**_** And so there you go, the ultimate fight between kids Naruto, Sasuke and Gohan. So in this chapter Naruto and Sasuke put together their sides their differences and worked together to try to overcome Gohan. Like they did in that one OVA. But obviously that didn't work as they still got overwhelmed by Gohan's power. And the reason why Naruto could stand Gohan's punchs in the end is still only tributed to his overwelming will not to quit and his ability to heal because of the Nine-Tails.**_

_**And plus then ending I thought fitted Gohan's character because he's not so vain or prideful to go seeking a victory in a fight no matter what. He doesn't fight for his prides sake, at least not this time. And plus I thing that at this stage of his life where I have him he's wise enough and humble enough to recognize that continuing on would only result in more damage that would be unnecessary. Both to their friendships that they've established on this little trip, and to their physical well being. And so he's the one whose able to take that in and to realise that if they aren't willing to give up, then he must. And I just think that that speaks to Gohan situational awareness and his maturity.**_


	8. The Meaning of Victory

**Chapter :8**

**The Meaning of Victory**

Both Sakura and Kakashi were both stunned by what they'd witnessed. Not only for the amazing battle they'd just seen happen in front of them but also it's conclusion. Gohan who could quite easily have ended the match by just finishing off his opponents but had instead opted to just give up and surrender the match to them.

"Huh? What did you say? What do you mean by that?" asked a stunned and confused Naruto.

"Just like a said. I give up. I don't want to fight anymore. You win." stated Gohan.

"Wait! What!? Why? Why would you want to give up the match? There's no reason for you to give up." questioned Naruto, now clearly confused and even a little miffed by Gohan's choice.

"Because you just plain won't give up and that losing this fight just doesn't mean that much to me. Plus you're proving to be next to impossible to beat since I can't seem to knock you out. So if you wouldn't give up for your own sake then I guess I would. The alternative to this fight if we continue it would be that you and Sasuke end up being far more injured and possibly hospitalized because of me. If just saying that I give up is the only way to save you from that fate then that's what I'm going to do. If you want to risk your life for just a stupid little fight then you can have it. I don't want any part of it." explained Gohan with barely retained contempt at the end as he then started walking away.

"So that's it? We fight our hearts out, get our asses kicked and then at your leisure you decide to walk away and tell us we've won? What kind of victory is that? I didn't fight all this time for a victory that I'll know in my heart was a loss. I said that I was gonna kick your ass and I'm not stopping until I do that for real!" challenged Naruto as loud as he could.

But _that_ made Gohan stop in his tracks and look back with a glare. "And then what? Even if you did beat me what would that give you? Other then a shameless ego boost? Do you even remember what you were fighting about in the first place? What started all this?" put forth Gohan.

"Well... Uh... I... Uh?" stuttered Naruto as he couldn't find an answer. He'd honestly forgotten what they were fighting about in the rush of everything.

"That's what I thought... Now you know, there's different ways to see a victory. Sometimes victory comes by what you accomplish in them and not by simply who stands and who falls. You see I could tell that behind everything we all fought this fight to showcase our abilities to each other and to learn how strong we all are. And wether we did it in the way we intended or not that's what we ended up doing. We earned each other's respect for our abilities. You two showed me your ninja abilities and I respect your strengths and strength of character and for my part I imagine I left you with a healthy respect for how strong I am. You impressed me in particular Naruto, you were very brave and so unrelenting with your will to never give up that it moved me and I couldn't bring myself to bring you down even though I could've. That's why I stopped when I did and that's one of the reasons why I'm letting you have the victory. You've worked too hard not to earn it. We all showed each other something in this fight, we all earned a little or a lot of respect from each other from our performances. And as for this battle that's what I suggest we see it as and we leave it at that." finished Gohan with his little speech and then walked away to be alone for a little while. Naruto was left thinking with a lot to ponder about.

After Gohan left, Kakashi and Sakura came to tend to their battered teammates. Kakashi went to tend to Sasuke while Sakura tended to Naruto on Kakashi's orders. "You know Naruto, that was a pretty wreckless and stupid thing to do fighting Gohan like that. I tried to warm you at the start not to fight him because I knew he would be super strong and now look what happens." reprimanded Sakura while she tended to the bruised up Naruto. Although truth be told she wasn't that mad at him because she knew he'd started fighting to at least try to defend her, even if it was a little clumsily handled on his part.

"Huh? Sakura, you knew that Gohan was super strong?" asked Naruto, surprised that Sakura knew beforehand and wondering how she'd known. For her part Sakura got a little reddish in embarrassement for both being caught and at the memory of how she'd found out.

"I... I... sorta found out last night while I was with Gohan. I sorta pieced it together that he was much stronger than he was leading us to believe. But I didn't know that he would be _this_ super strong." blushingly admitted Sakura.

"Oh!... At the hot springs... last night... I guess you must like him." said Naruto dejectedly. Sakura once again found herself blushing in embarrassment, this time from the implications that were suggested.

"You idiot! It's not like that! I mean he's a nice likeable guy and everything but I don't like him like that. And what happened last night was an honest accident that was primarily my fault and as soon as it happened he turned his back and didn't look at me again. I talked to him and he talked to me about some stuff and that was it." corrected Sakura. Naruto smiled at that and realized that hope was not lost for him yet.

Once they were tended to, Naruto and Sasuke were brought forward to Kakashi for a severe reprimand. "I can't believe you two, fighting our client, the one we're supposed to protect. It's only thanks to how strong Gohan is that all that resulted from this is a damaged field and some humbled prides. Those jutsus you used in combination back there could've killed him. They were _lethal_ jutsus and I can't believe you two would try using them together like that for such a minor spat like that." growled out Kakashi as he chewed out his students like an angry school teacher.

"B-B-But Kakashi sensei, you saw how he fought and how he deflected that move. He was totally super strong and there was nothing else that we could try on him. Besides we were aiming to hit him in non-lethal spots so we couldn't've killed him." Naruto tried to defend.

"And what if you'd missed and actually did hit him in a vital spot and it killed him, what then?" questioned Kakashi. Naruto had no reply as he lowered his head in shame.

"What does it matter anyway? He beat us anyway? We were just too weak." glowered Sasuke as his fist shook and his teeth clenched.

"Don't let this loss get to you Sasuke, or to you Naruto. Gohan is just on an unbelievable other level of strength. I don't think even I could beat him." admitted Kakashi.

"Youuu Kakashi sensei?" questioned Naruto, as both he and Sasuke were shocked by this admission. "Yes, and I don't think I could've done much better than you two did either. Gohan's just something totally else. Such sheer physical fighting speed and such strength in combination of such experience in such a young boy. And I'm not even sure we've seen a _fraction_ of his true power. I've never seen anything like it before." said Kakashi. That made the Genins _really_ open their eyes. Shortly thereafter the team moved off and returned to the camp.

The team moved on and eventually night fell as the team made camp for a third night. Sasuke found himself sitting in a large clearing looking up at the partially cloud covered Moon thinking out on things. "A penny for your thoughts." asked a somewhat familiar voice. It was Gohan, as he walked up from behind and then seated himself next to Sasuke.

"Hmph... What are you doing here?" shrugged Sasuke. "I saw that you were out here alone and I figured there must be something bothering you so I came to check up. I figured you could use someone to talk to." said Gohan in a comforting way.

Sasuke just seemed to shrug it off but after a few minutes of just sitting there he finally relented. "(sigh) Today at the battle, both you and Naruto showed me up. You showed me how weak I still am, how 'insufficient' my powers still is. I mean HE managed to stick around and gut it out to earn us that 'victory' while I just caved in. And YOU just had so much _power_ that it made us look weak. Don't you two _know_ that I can't be made to look _weak_?" angrily and bitterly said Sasuke with a clenched, shaking fist. How dare they try to disprove him from his ways he thought. Gohan just looked at him with sadness and pity in his eyes.

"I know about your brother, Sasuke. Sakura told me about him last night." dryly said out Gohan. A few awkward seconds passed by between the two. "Sakura talks a little too much sometimes... What did she tell you?" asked Sasuke without looking at him.

"She told me that he was the greatest prodigy in your clan, that you constantly had to live under the shadow of his accomplishments and that one day he went out and murdered your entire clan in one night and left you behind." answered Gohan, speaking with remorse in his voice.

"That _Bastard_ stole away my life and then made me live through Hell. First he stole my parents love with his abilities, grabbing all the attention to himself. He was always so much stronger then I could ever even hope to match. And then, without warning he destroys them along with everyone else in the clan to leave me alone to live endlessly in loneliness. And now I have no choice but to kill him somehow and take my revenge." Sasuke responded, bitterly recalling the harsh memories through clenched teeth and shaking fist.

"That must've been _extremely_ painful." commented Gohan. "Painful doesn't even begin to describe it. You can never know the horror of watching everyone you ever felt close to be killed in front of you. You can't know the pain of what it's like to have someone constantly achieving things that you can never measure up to. To have a mountain in Human form constantly looming over you and making you feel inferior all the time. You can't know what it's like to feel the want for revenge course through your every cell in your system and override everything in your life except for the want of revenge." chillingly ranted Sasuke.

Gohan could only look down at the ground with a sad, sympathetic look on his face. "Believe it or not Sasuke, but I _do_ know what it's like. At least in some ways." said Gohan. "What!?" replied Sasuke.

"I had to go through watching my friends and even close family members die in battle. I've felt that overwhelming urge to take on revenge for their deaths before. I've also felt what it's like to have people who've achieved incredible heights weigh down on you. You see I too was once like you in that I once felt weak in the face of others' strengths. Always wanting to achieve those heights that others have forged for you and constanly feeling weak and that the gap would never close and that I would never catch up. So you see, me and you are more alike than you think." said Gohan, reminiscing about the fight with the Saiyans and about his former weakness in the face of his father's and Piccolo's strengths and the constant feeling of inferiority that came with it.

Sasuke was shocked by this admission. "You did? Then what happened to you?" asked Sasuke, now genuinely curious as to his outcome. Gohan opened one eye and then gave him a foxy grin. "I surpassed them!" confidently replied Gohan.

"You did? How did you do it?" asked Sasuke, wanting to know his secret so that it would hopefully work for himself.

"Well, we were facing a crisis with an enemy who was unimaginably strong and I had to attempt an incredibly radical training program that was a departure from everything else that I had ever done. It was done in a hidden chamber where I had to train with one of the strongest people I'd ever known for a whole year alone. That training was the most powerful I'd ever gotten and with it I grew to be on the level of the person I'd most wanted to surpass. And in the following battle that we'd been preparing for, I unlocked my powers further in the heat of the battle and in that event it pushed my powers past anyone else's and I surpassed all those before me. But it was all thanks to the training that I had had that pushed me to that level. The person who'd trained me had purposefully slowed down his own training for me to catch up to him and then while we both grew stronger he'd designed it and hoped for for me to surpass him and that's what I eventually ended up doing. I have no doubt of that." explained Gohan, finishing his tale.

Sasuke's face after hearing this story was one of wide eyed amazement and then it fell to an expression of hope shot down and then finally one of derision. 'He actually trained with the person he'd wanted to surpass? How does that help me? I can't go and ask for Itachi to train me. That's out of the question! But nonetheless, maybe I should seek out some kind of stronger training somewhere _else_.' darkly thought Sasuke.

Gohan was surprised by the look on Sasuke's face as he turned around and stood up with Gohan facing his back. "Unfortunately, you don't seem to understand me at all. _What I am_. What my task is. Neither you nor Naruto or anyone else! _I am an Avenger_... The path I tread his a dark one and one that I must walk alone. To do that, I must find power... at any price. The more I stay here with Naruto and the others, the more I feel I'm not progressing like I need to." darkly spoke Sasuke. Sasuke then looked down to find Gohan still sitting with a downcast look of reflection on his face.

"Yes... indeed the path of revenge is a treacherous one. But if you want my advice, then if you feel your training isn't enough then go and find what is. Sometimes we only need to find the right training or the right teacher to make us as strong as we want." advised Gohan, standing up and placing his hand on Sasuke's shoulder in a reassuring way. After that, Gohan left to leave Sasuke to himself for the rest of the night. Left to reflect on what was said.

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_** And so here it is. I hope you enjoyed Gohan's little speech and counter-argument with Naruto and Sasuke. And once again, I wanted it to speak about Gohan's maturity and sense of wisdom on the battlefield. Because I think of Gohan as a kind of sensei to them. I see him as the kind of veteran hero in their midst who's giving out advice on life. Because even though he's about the same age age as them at this point, we all know that his life experience is vastly different. And here also, I had Gohan share a moment with Sasuke. It was a moment that I had in my head for a long time and I had many different ways to say sentences and to mean something. I agonized for a long time over which phrases to use and what they talked about and how much does Gohan hold back about his life and what he should tell him how Sasuke should react and things of that nature etc. And how Gohan's advice could affect Sasuke and the decisions he makes later on. But I the end, I just hope I could do justice to those two characters ans what they mean to each other. I hope you could enjoy.**_

_**P. S. BTW, I just got done redoing the previous chapters of this fic. So for any of you who want to read the more streamlined, less clunky paragraph version with more line breaks? Be sure to check it out.**_


	9. The Journey's End

**Chapter: 9**

**The Journey's End**

The next morning, the team headed out for what was the final day of their trip. They had been moving out for three days and four nights on what was supposed to be a three day journey. Everyone was resigned to how the trip was ending but they kept silent as they were all thinking in their own private ways.

They had just reached the crest of a hill the road surmounted and from there they could overview the complex that held the convention where Gohan was to make his diplomatic overture.

"Well, there it is. Our destination. The complex where the convention of the Ninja Nations is being held." stated Kakashi.

"So that's where we have to drop him off? To tell you the truth I sorta forgot in all the 'excitement' of this little trip. I can't believe it only took three days, it somehow felt longer than that... But you know, I almost feel sad that it's ending like this. It was a real blast having Gohan around." said Naruto, smiling. The others also all smiled in their own ways at Gohan as they too enjoyed his company. Kakashi gave an eye smile, Sakura gave a cute head tilting smile and Sasuke just gave a small grin and said "Hn".

"Then how sad that I'm going to have to end it sooner than you think." said a mysterious voice, as then a figure zipped out of the treeline and then appeared standing straight in the middle of the road. The figure stood proudly with his arms behind his back and in a pink battle robe with the kanji for 'Kill You' on the right side of his chest. What was unmistakable about the figure was that his head was like a robot with his eyes being like red telescopes, everything except for his nose, chin and mouth along with a unique mustache were robotic. The ninja immediately tensed up and went into battle stances while Gohan, their charge, went to the back of their formation where he couldn't be seen properly.

"Oh man! What now? Who is this freak!?" exclaimed Naruto.

"I think I recognize him from the Bingo Book. He's called Tao Pai Pai otherwise known as Mercenary Tao or 'General' Tao. He's been encountered in the ninja nations on only a few sporatic occasions but what is known is that he's a highly deadly mercenary assassin known for taking the highest ranking assassination jobs and is regarded as one of the most deadly of assassins in the world." said Kakashi, looking highly tense and even nervous as he looked at the famous assasin.

"So, you saying this guy is really strong?" asked Naruto who was now a little intimidated. "I'm saying that Zabuza would be a _breeze_ compared to this guy. I doubt we could find a stronger opponent if even we went up against a Kage." said Kakashi, letting those words sink in. At that, Naruto along with the other members of Team 7 visibly gulped, now feeling _extremely_ unsure of themselves.

"Aaah! So you know of me. It's true that I have traveled to the ninja world on a few occasions. I can always find good work there. Sad to say that I've done too few of them for you ninja to get a true grasp of my talents. You see outside the world of ninjas I'm know as the top assassin in the world." smirkingly said Tao. "So what's the "World's Greatest Assassin" want with us?" asked Kakashi.

"Well, in case it wasn't obvious already I've been contracted by an anonymous party to kill the little Ox Prince before he can make it to his conference. It seems that there are some people who want this conference not to go through and my client happens to be one of them. Although I don't know why I'm telling you this since I'm aiming to kill you. But if you must die I guess you should know why. Unless you choose to step aside and let me at my target alone." explained Tao.

"Like fat chance you buckethead! You're going to have to get through us before you get a shot at him!" defiantly shot back Naruto, pumping his fist at him.

"Hmm, how cute. I'm well acquainted with ninja tactics but if you intend to get in my way then I guess I can play with you a little. It's been quite a while since I've had fun with ninjas." taunted Tao as both sides prepared to face off.

The two sides were about to leap at each other when suddenly Gohan came up from behind Kakashi and put a stop to the engagement before it could even begin. "Alright, that's enough! I think you've had enough "fun" for one day." said Gohan in that commanding tone with his game face on.

"And who is this one?" asked Tao as he'd genuinely not noticed him before as his attention had been on the ninja. 'Wait... he seems familiar somehow? But that face it can't be!' thought Tao, recognition beginning to hint in his mind.

"I'm the one you're after, so leave these people out of of it. It may have been over a year since I last saw you but you're still causing trouble." said Gohan, a little anger and annoyance etching at his voice.

"But, _you_!? It can't be _you_! You can't be him! Th-th-the eyes... the hair!" exclaimed Tao, panic and fear etched on his face as he recognition set in. At that, the ninjas, and especially Sakura, raised an eyebrow each. 'What? His eyes and hair?' was what they commonly asked in their heads.

"I might look a little different then the last time we met, but I'm definitely the same person. I'm the son of Goku and of Chi-Chi the daughter of the Ox King. I'm the heir to the throne, the prince of the Ox Kingdom, _Gohan_... And if you want to continue causing trouble then I'll have no choice but to show you just exactly what my father passed down to me." declared Gohan, going into a battle stance.

At that Tao immediately backpedaled in fear, quivering like a scared little child and shaking his head in desperate denial. "No, no, no, no, NOOO! It can't be you! Not them again! That's it! Forget about this! I QUIT!" screamed Tao as he then ran off to a tree, broke it and then launched into the air before leaping on it and riding it all to way away into the distance.

The ninjas were wide eyed at this as someone who they were told was one of the strongest people in the world and who could probably easily beat them just ran off like a coward from their friend Gohan.

"G-Gohan what the hell! What was that all about?" asked Naruto voicing the others opinions. "Oh! Well let's just say he had a bad experience with my father once, and then with me later." sheepishly answered Gohan.

While the ninjas were amazed by the vagueness but decided to let it go as that as they felt like they probably shouldn't know the specifics. They then resumed the last leg of their journey.

When finally they reached the doors of the complex building it was finally time to say goodbye as they'd finished their mission. The members of Team 7 were lined up parallel to the door with Gohan standing outside facing them.

"I've had so much fun with guys on this trip. It's almost sad that it has to end like this... (Walks up to Kakashi.) Kakashi, there's just something about you that reminds me of my sensei. So calm and in control when teaching students and so intelligent and wise on the battlefield. It reminds me so much of him. There's no higher compliment that I can give. It was a real honor working with you." said Gohan, bowing in respect. Kakashi for his part was taken aback bit by the show of respect, but instead eye-smiled and offered his hand.

"No Gohan, the honor and the pleasure was getting to know you." said Kakashi as then Gohan just shook his offered hand.

Next up was Sakura as Gohan came up to her. "Sakura, from what I can see you're good kunoichi, you're very pretty, very smart, fierce, capable and a pretty balanced person. But I think you're pretty hard on Naruto all the time. I know that he can be a little dense some of the time and that he makes you angry some of the time. But he means well and he doesn't deserve it a lot of the time. That and plus I don't think that Sasuke is quite as much of a saint as you make him out be sometimes. You don't need to put him on that high a pedestal. Look after them." said Gohan giving her a hand.

"Thank you Gohan. It was great getting to know you and no matter I'll never forget our 'talk' together that night. And don't you worry, I'll look after them and ease up on Naruto for you." said back Sakura as she shook his hand and gave him a affectionate farewell kiss on the cheek.

Next, Gohan confronted Sasuke as the Uchiha genius looked at him rather coldly trying to be impassive. "Sasuke, I would be lying if I said that I thought we got along very well. In fact I think that you don't like me. But I think that maybe if we'd had more time we'd maybe learn to get along and become friends. In fact you remind me far too much of someone I know. He too was a very prideful individual who always liked doing things alone and was very driven towards his goals. But eventually he too found value in a team and eventually after years we even came to consider him our friend in a way. I hope the same can be said about you and that someday we can meet up again as real friends."said Gohan as he then gave out his hand.

Sasuke, although mildly surprised by the friendship in Gohan's little and by the gesture, he nonetheless gave a slight smile and chuckled warmly. "Hm Hm Hm. You're a very interesting guy Gohan Son. And you're right, I don't like you very much. But neither do I thing I dislike you very much." said Sasuke as he took Gohan's hand and shook it.

And finally, last but definitely not least there was Naruto. "Naruto, for what it's worth I'm sorry about what happened yesterday. I hope that your not still sore at me because of our fight. Can we still be friends?" offered Gohan as he held out his hand in apology. Naruto seemed to think about it for a minute before shaking it and giving him a big foxy smile.

"We never stopped being. There's nothing to be sorry for, I'm the one who started the fight anyway so I'm the one who should be apologising. Besides, what you said to me after the fight, I had to think on it alot and what I found it made a whole lot of sense. So thanks for the advice, you're a real cool guy." said Naruto while he shook his hand.

"You're a real interesting guy, ya know that Naruto? For all your boasts and all your faults I don't believe I've ever met anyone with as strong or determined a heart as you do. I see great things in you. I see that you and my father share the same spirit to do things that are great. And that's why I _know_ that you'll achieve your dream of being Hokage-or-whatever. But more then that, I see that you'll become a great man and I'll be waiting for when you do. I had fun being around you and of all that's happened on this trip, I'll miss _you_ the most." said Gohan.

Naruto was almost in tears from hearing that. "And it was absolutely fun having _you_ around this trip. See ya around. Come visit us at the Hidden Leaf Village anytime!" farewelled Naruto as then both he and his teammates waved goodbye as they walked away to the proverbial sunset.

Once he was done waving, Gohan went inside the doors and started thinking as he walked down the corridor. 'I guess I'll have alot to tell the guys about how ninja's fight. About how they channel their energy through their handsigns and how they can use substitution on themselves and use different elements and stuff.' thought Gohan as he continued to go on down the hallway to the conference he'd preparing to face to but then he stopped and turned back to voice one final thought.

"The Hidden Leaf Village? Hmmm... That would be a place to visit afterall?" said Gohan, suggesting that things weren't over yet with these ninjas...

* * *

**Author's Thoughts:**_** And so here we are. This is end of our little journey. But don't worry, like I said at the beginning this is just the first part of a two part series. This little fic is going to continue. But first, I hope you enjoyed my little moment with Tao. The idea for Gohan to confront a Z villain in front of the ninjas was always a part of the story, from the very beginning. But I hoped you enjoyed the hilarity of this one. At some points I had ideas for replacing it with a more serious mega-battle scene with Bojack and his gang. But in the end I decided to go with a more light-hearted one with a lesser villain. And Tao Pai Pai seemed like the perfect villain for my purposes.**_

_**And I hope you enjoyed the heartfelt farewell between Gohan and each members of Team 7 and all the advice he had to give. And plus, if your wondering why I never gave Naruto and Gohan a serious private bonding moment like I did with Sakura and Sasuke? It's because their both so obviously so similar in character and the fact that they have such natural chemistry and relatability. Plus that I thought that all the little moments that are planted over the course of the whole fic. That this whole **_**fanfic**_** was like one big Naruto and Gohan bonding moment, and thus had no need for one. Well anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one. See you in the next one...**_


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